Messler--Childhood

Cory MESSLER has published prose and poetry in Rattle, In Posse Review, Cranky, Re)verb, StorySouth, Canopic Jar, Contrary, Pindeldyboz, Mitochondria, Mars Hill Review, 13th Warrior Review, Pikeville Review, Arkansas Review, Stirring, Red River Review, Center, Small Press Review, Jabberwock Review. He chapbook, Chin-Chin in Eden, won the Moonfire Poetry Chapbook Competition for 2003, and was recently published by Still Waters Press. Another chapbook, Dark on Purpose, is just out from Little Poem Press.

CHILDHOOD

Come by this way

where the bramble tangles,

where the children

have left their spent shells

and condoms. Near

the shack where Winnie

takes her boys.

Near this pond which when

frozen looks like

a dirty mirror.

Come by this way,

and I will tell you how it was

for me, for all of us,

growing up under the

umbrella of mushroom clouds,

in the mystic 60s,

in a suburb called Raleigh,

on the edge of

the great, unreal Bluff City.

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