“Familial Cannibalism” by Dan Nowak

I’ve a handful of a broken alphabet
dying my skin up to the wrist in false
shades for you. These words, ethereal as
possible, are built for you to eat them
whole in vulgar gulps. I beg you,
swallow my hands. They hold everything
I offer. Perhaps gas station flowers
would be better heart tattoos. I dress
these words up in a K-mart greeting card
letting them become forgot-me-too’s.
Tomorrow will be better when we don’t speak.

–Dan Nowak,
Of a Bed Frame (2011)
Accents Publishing

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Dan Nowak’s first book, Recycle Suburbia, won the 2007 Quercus Review Poetry Series Award. He also has a chapbook, Burning the Arson Dictionary: Poems for Thomas McGrath published by RockSaw Press. Dan is co-founder and co-editor ofImaginary Friend Press and an editor for New Sins Press. Dan lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and enjoys that Lakefront Brewery is less than a mile from his home.