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Two Prose Poems by Gregory Sherl

Gregory Sherl

Phone Log

My mind starts with a pill on the back of my tongue and then three monster sips of water. Where I am headed: the shower before worn-in jeans, a soft V-neck, a half-buttoned cardigan, a leather couch where my therapist doesn’t take notes. His memory is better than mine so he tells me how to feel. I leave his office sweating. It’s May in the South. Maybe it is probably May everywhere. If K would only touch me, koalas would feel like sandpaper. Sandpaper would skin its shins on the sidewalk and hopscotch would be deadly. I hope she stays forever if forever is long enough. We’re going to find a house by the ocean, a family room big enough for a green couch we can plant the next 50 years into. I wander around my block, wonder how miles got so damn big. When I get home, I take a shower. I leave the conditioner in my chest hair for two full minutes. While in the shower, I consider size while soaping my cock. Can you shrink nature, the logistics of a continent? At a job interview I tell Cortney, the interviewer, Thank you for giving me a reason to wear a tie. I don’t expect a call back but I still check my phone every 15 minutes. When my phone doesn’t make any noise, I pretend to not care. Alone, I think Surely I am still alive—this bluebird, this phone log.

 

Sugar in the Raw

I think dust when I see it. I never had to tell the last one I will try to forget you. It just happened. Broken hearts feel like worn-out bristles. Medicine cabinets are prisons. She dares me to climb under the sink. Fold into an origami swan she says. One of those boxes that crushes under the weight of nothing. Folded up, I have nothing to do but count my leg hair. I hit the 300’s before growing bored. She dares me to rip up the tile, climb down into the earth. Smell more natural she tells me. She throws away all of my Splenda packets. We kiss with sweaty mouths. It’s rough always reminding myself to breathe.

August 15, 2011 9:24 pm

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