FIVE MICROS

BY PARKER TETTLETON

SINGLE FILE

Switch the f and the second l.

It looks. Like you. Like it. You look like it, you like. It. You.

Every day said, approaching, upon approach, in life with a few switches.

IN THE PARADE ON A TOILET OUTSIDE OF ANYTHING IN FRONT OF EVERYONE

What I lose when I sit there, yes I love you, how each sound is another where who’s listening doesn’t matter, doesn’t mean, maybe.

Man on a plane in a movie says Bathroom.

Stands, suspender-less pants in a pile on the blue carpet, aisle empty but eyes, ass diapered.

SOUP AFICIONADO

Maybe I got that once shaving with my eyes closed. I’m still as a bear at Disneyland. The windows have locks and the locks have each other. Maybe I raise my bowl to the nothing that’s in it and. Me.

SISTERS AND TERRORISTS

Snipers spread, scoping. His heart. Fresh, free of family, youth. Same the coordinates are the same. Always, of. Course. He says her, softly. She is done, necking. He rides, of the seatbelt, hot metal in his hands.

COAT

She locks the door, tells herself she’ll be back, as he often was, short on replies, in possession of the thing that kept talk at a minimum and filled longing with the present without room to desire the past or future. She wears a coat knowing it is cold. She might tear something.

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Parker Tettleton is an English major at Kennesaw State University. His work has been accepted by Short, Fast, and Deadly, Mud Luscious, > kill author and elimae, among others. His chapbook Same Opposite was recently published by Thunderclap Press. He blogs at http://parker-augustlight.blogspot.com/