Picaroon Poetry - Issue #12 - May 2018
The return of Picaroon Poetry! After nearly six months away while Kate had a baby, we are back. Features 32 brand new poems by Rachel Burns, Marissa Glover, Charley Barnes, Maggie Sawkins, Kitty Coles, Lennart Lundh, Heidi Slettedahl, Simon Perchik, Adrian Slonaker, Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon, Bob MacKenzie, Jack Little, Neil Fulwood, Carl Boon, Sophie Petrie, Tobi Alfier, Bethany W Pope, Brett Stout, Thomas Tyrrell, Jonathan Humble, Scott Redmond, Abigail Elizabeth Ottley, Irene Cunningham, Jenny McRobert, J.S. Watts, Sunita Thind, Michelle Diaz, Bethany Rivers, Stephen Seabridge, Martin Zarrop, Ian Grosz, and Michael McGill.
The return of Picaroon Poetry! After nearly six months away while Kate had a baby, we are back.
Features 32 brand new poems by Rachel Burns, Marissa Glover, Charley Barnes, Maggie Sawkins, Kitty Coles, Lennart Lundh, Heidi Slettedahl, Simon Perchik, Adrian Slonaker, Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon, Bob MacKenzie, Jack Little, Neil Fulwood, Carl Boon, Sophie Petrie, Tobi Alfier, Bethany W Pope, Brett Stout, Thomas Tyrrell, Jonathan Humble, Scott Redmond, Abigail Elizabeth Ottley, Irene Cunningham, Jenny McRobert, J.S. Watts, Sunita Thind, Michelle Diaz, Bethany Rivers, Stephen Seabridge, Martin Zarrop, Ian Grosz, and Michael McGill.
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epeatedly checks him into rehab,<br />
the cheap kind, where they don’t talk much,<br />
and he leaves, promising to do better.<br />
Sometimes, I see him at Christmas. He’s thinner<br />
each year, and his hair is finer, increasingly<br />
white. When my grandma died, he came home<br />
for the funeral. The suit he wore<br />
was made for a boy. It fit him around<br />
his shoulders and waist, but it only<br />
covered half his legs and half his arms.<br />
His limbs stuck out, hairy, like a spider’s.<br />
I gave him a hug and felt the bones<br />
in his back as he leaked hard tears onto<br />
my chest. Then his long hand, briefly, cupped<br />
my right breast. My Uncle is a funny<br />
man, even now that he is dying.<br />
Remembering the last job he had,<br />
working the night shift at a gas station,<br />
he says, ‘At least I don't have to sleep<br />
in the freezer any more.’ He never<br />
slept there. He had a cot, out in storage.<br />
They paid him in Jim Beam and let him out<br />
for church on alternate Sundays.<br />
Every couple of hours, my uncle grows<br />
restless. He sneaks out of the ward and smokes<br />
with the janitors. They like him<br />
because he’s willing to share. Somehow,<br />
his cigarettes are always good. His skin’s gone<br />
all yellow and cracked, and his gunslinger<br />
eyes are clouded and sunken. He’s fifty;<br />
looks eighty, and he’s on his way out.<br />
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