I know you feel like no one
knows you. I understand
the long, disembodied slide
into the self followed by the urge
to set off car alarms and toss
a garbage lid into the street.
The good news is you’re coming together
like those leaves swirling in a column
and then forming a neat mound.
But you still feel invisible, don’t you?
You’re still the lone citizen
of your own ravenous body.
There you go, chasing after the parts of yourself
you’ve felt but never found. The bad news is
that they’ve been watching you, the weathermen,
making their dire predictions, and now they’re warning
your neighbors to hide in their basements
or crouch in a ditch somewhere,
waiting it out while you rampage and rage.
Wouldn’t it feel better to turn into music
or at least into words?

–Tom C. Hunley,
Scotch Tape World (2013)
Accents Publishing

Tom C. Hunley is an associate professor of English at Western Kentucky University and the director of Steel Toe Books. Among his previous books are The Poetry Gymnasium (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012); Annoyed Grunt (Imaginary Friend Press, 2012);Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2010, Gold Invitational Series); Octopus(Logan House, 2008, Winner of the Holland Prize); Teaching Poetry Writing: A Five-Canon Approach(Multilingual Matters LTD., 2007, New Writing Viewpoints Series); My Life as a Minor Character (Pecan Grove, 2005, winner of a national chapbook contest); Still, There’s a Glimmer(WordTech Editions, 2004); and The Tongue (Wind Publications, 2004). He divides his time between Kansas and Oz.