Sprinklerhead
The effect was immediate: I fell
For you like a dinner plate.
This year’s “stiff competition” is next
Year’s Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and we
Should be concerned. Call a medic,
Or maybe a rain delay. Whatever
Gives you enough love to sleep
Halfway through the long, lonely night.
Cassette Tape
You come from anxious stock:
daughters in the pharmacy, love
sealing the wool at centigrade.
How many woozy lambs would it
take for you to fall in love with
sound? It follows sharply through
the ravine, on your coattails like
mildew on the fine morning. His
hand burns with seeds, the kind
that fall into the soil and dissolve
without a word. One foregone
conclusion is he’s messing you up
with winter; another is he’s singing
with that wet kind of fear you like.
It is absolutely not necessary to make
that choice at this time; you should
know, though, that time is likely
to forge a decision and pass it off
as yours, without your permission
or so much as a passing glance.
Widow Code
I mistook your body
For a flood & died in it
Every decision is insane
N’oubliez pas ça
The secret admirer
Walks out from the mist
& takes you
As his only prisoner
You have four options
None of them are pretty
bathtub soliloquy
hello
i can hear the chain
rattling
i know you’re up there
uh
out there
at least i
think i do
does the chain connect
me to you
(chain of fools)
or is it just over here
on the tub
severed
like i’ve been born
***
Tom Snarsky teaches mathematics at Malden High School in Malden, MA. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in H_NGM_N, aglimpseof, minor literature[s], ex-ex-lit, Of/with, Zoomoozophone Review, The Helios Mss, and elsewhere. He lives in Braintree, MA.
*Featured photography courtesy of Brian Michael Barbeito*
SICK LIT MAGAZINE 
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