Poem of the Month
Insurance Claim

By Mark Callanan

Published on May 1, 2012

Here’s how it panned out:
the stick of dynamite,
thrown on the pond
to break up ice for trout

was snapped up
by that poor mutt,
remembering git, boy, git
and the swift kick

that came with disobedience.
So they lost their shit
and started shooting,
anything to ward him off.

And he, stick in his gob
like a giant cuban—stupid
fuck—crouched under cover
of their brand new truck.

More Poetry

Instead of a Christening

Goodbye, Romans said at interments,
Goodbye, and Goodbye. Hired clowns
imitated the dead, mocking
and reminding among the mourners.

I moat myself with winter sea,
I bury myself in woods.

Yorick

Bookending our VHS library In the basement closet, beside ski suits, Is our family’s one-man Capuchin Crypt, A skull Dad kept from med school that just sits, Waiting to be played with, bored, unburied.

Magnetic Days

I’m on St-Zotique and St-Laurent in the cage on the east side of the street shooting baskets alone. Despite it ...