𝙾 𝙲 𝙲 𝚄 𝙻 𝚄 𝙼

by Jon Riccio

I hold my name like an inverted airport
greeting at curbside delivery, 
sportswear invoking leotards who
didn’t condone a parent’s aerobics,
decathlon balloon pricking cat-o’-nine 
workout tapes. Séance hoarders, 
what is the peppermill’s fate?

Spirituality books the ballroom 
for Zeugma’s Eve. Crop circles disillusion 
clauses-in-sheaf. Uncle Anchor Maker 
invents a dirigible line of Valentine’s cards—
“My emotions you zeppelin” profiting mini-Atlantis kit.
For eleven dollars, you can glue-gun a continent, 
tidier Orpheus concertizing from gingerbread houseboat. 

Cosmo quiz: which failed saint are you?  

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Jon Riccio teaches literature and creative writing at Western Michigan University and the University of West Alabama. A past Lambda Literary Fellow, he received his PhD from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers.