In Fever Sleep A Year Later by Hunter Therron | ISSUE TWENTY TWO: Less Malty Rye

In Fever Sleep A Year Later

Hunter Therron

I became an old woman, and called the world Hun.
Like strays, the abandoned farmhouses off I-88.
Today is dry. You are drowning. Every night: Tony
saves your life. His hair: long and twisted. Now,
he’s a rabbit in your dreams, and you lift him
from black water. He dies. Bites your hand. Dies

again. Tony Z pours slag in Scranton now. He stopped playing guitar.
You live in Beijing, and yesterday a boy sped past on a pink bike.
He held balloons, hundreds, hit a bump, and they all shot up.
His face twisted. He pulled at his eyelids, shrieked, found
a pile of broken glass, and threw the shiny pieces up. A woman
cried. The balloons burst, but the glass never fell back down.

Hunter Therron teaches English on a small Thai island. Last month, he rode a motorbike 500 miles into the Myanmar Himalayas. His dream is to publish a novel. He spends most of his free time trying to write the damn thing.

ISSUE TWENTY TWO: Less Malty Rye | next poem →