A golden shovel

“Why couldn’t the bicycle stand by itself? It was two tired.”

He should have been one more stick in the spoke. Why
couldn’t he have wobbled like all muddy tires? Why couldn’t
he have been a man that said, Look Ma, no hands! as the
road rolled out uneven? Another asshole who rode her bicycle
like the wind, then was gone with it. No kick-stand,
casualty on the hot summer pavement. Instead, one by
one, my father peddled faith into us. The church, itself,
quietly consisting of our small, tandem family. It
was the last time wind was ever at my back. When I was
balloon and vesper. It takes so much energy to mourn for two,

And I am so tired.

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Lannie Stabile (she/her), a queer Detroiter, is the winner of OutWrite’s 2020 Chapbook Competition in Poetry; the winning chapbook, “Strange Furniture,” is out with Neon Hemlock Press. She is also a back-to-back finalist for the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 Glass Chapbook Series and back-to-back semifinalist for the Button Poetry 2018 and 2019 Chapbook Contests. Lannie currently holds the position of Managing Editor at Barren Magazine and is a member of the MMPR Collective. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee.

Twitter: @LannieStabile