Are You at Risk for Shingles
At the orgy there’s a campfire on Lydia’s once beautiful breast.
We’re here to party, but don’t be like me obsessed with the enemy’s coach. God, will he ever come?
I believe in a non-personal God a God of space and magnets lava and breast milk.
I also believe in a God who spends up to three hours a day listening just to me.
On the way home from the orgy I’m not talking to my wife of ten years I’m thinking about chickenpox.
How sometimes chickenpox is a flashlight in limbo until it’s reborn stronger than before.
Lots of people blabber on and on but I like the people who keep their shingles a secret.
I started a church where everyone dresses in dirt and worships nature shows without words.
I see a dead cricket beside the nightstand. I pick it up and his body comes away like nothing from his legs.
Tim Staley was born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1975. He completed a Poetry MFA from New Mexico State University in 2004. Poems have appeared in over 20 journals including Border Senses, burntdistrict, Chiron Review, Circumference, Coe Review, and RHINO. His newest poetry chapbook, The Sickness Suite, is available at www.GrandmaMosesPress.com. His poems have also been featured on Lively Words, an online reading series. He was a finalist in Imaginary Press’ 2013 Full Length Book Contest. He was the winner of The 2012 Luminaire Award for Best in Poetry, awarded by Alternating Current Press. He also won The Peter Harris-Kunz Endowed Award in Poetry in 2004. His hobbies include Bocce Ball, canoeing, potty training, and thinking. He lives with his wife and daughter in Las Cruces, New Mexico. |