𝙾 𝙲 𝙲 𝚄 𝙻 𝚄 𝙼

by Jeffrey Kingman

1.
Put pennies up on
the train rail. Run down and wait.
They told us one boy
got killed. Oh no, we said, fak-
ing it. Dead kids can’t find us.

2.
Like a dumpster fire,
a bloody nose will not balk.
Smear the chalkboard with
ulcers. I will not apol-
ogize. Haunt me, or vanish.

3.
Children’s voices, loud,
wild. Within a fence, to stop
their flailing elbows.
Shelter each from falling out
or with an iron, burn them.

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Jeffrey Kingman lives by the Napa River in Vallejo, California. His poetry collection, BEYOND THAT HILL I GATHER, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2021. His poetry chapbook, ON A ROAD, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2019. He is the winner of the 2018 Eyelands Book Award (Greece) for an unpublished poetry book, a finalist in the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk poetry book competition, and was long listed for the 2025 ONLY POEMS Poet of the Year Prize. He has poems published in PANK, Clackamas Literary Review, Action Spectacle, and others. Jeffrey is a copy editor at Omnidawn Publishing. He has a Master’s degree in Music Composition and has been playing drums in rock bands most of his life.