Poem #4: Prose poetry chain

Mark Cunningham

FOUR BLOCKS

When the commercial said reach out and touch someone, I almost did. Then I realized I couldn't afford the legal costs. He waved at passing cars so the drivers would see him walking on the shoulder: this caused the drivers to swerve slightly toward him.

I told him I had just been thinking about him and he said, "that's odd, so was I." She assured me getting shot was not the issue; it was where you got shot that counted. A nature image: when I sneeze, I imagine a swarm of baby spiders rushing out in all directions away from their mother in the center of the web. My jeans are distressed, but I feel fine.

What was once static is now silence and still we listen for an answering. She had too many friends to be trusted. I can stand in any direction, but the only way I can sit is facing forward. The only story I believe is my own. Why I believe it is another story.

Dear customer: there's a hole in every bag. Usually, it's called the opening. "God's history ... is the history of excrement." Know how long you've been in a town by how many bank lobbies you've waited in. I'm pretty sure the road not taken had better fast food.

Mark Cunningham

Mark Cunningham has pieces in recent or forthcoming issues of Practice, Sentence and Dusie. Tarpaulin Sky Press will be bringing out a book tentatively titled Body Language, which will contain two separate collections, one titled Body (on parts of the body) and one titled Primer (on numbers and letters).

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