Now only two things of yours remain:

the stain on my sheets from that time
neither of us could wait

and your running shoes,
which maybe you’ll return for
because they still have some miles left in them.

-Jesse Manley,
Bigger Than They Appear:
Anthology of Very Short Poems
(Accents Publishing)

There are sharp flashes of light, moments when the miraculous world reveals itself to us swiftly, fully. And, because hte mind is also a miracle, the lucky words sometimes arrive to capture that revelation and through it witness what it means to be alive. That is the girft of this gorgeous collection.

–Mary Ann Taylor-Hall

Jesse Manley earned his MFA in poetry from the University of New Orleans and is an editor emeritus of Bayou Magazine and Ellipsis