@trpoulson and @trpoulsonlimericks
T. R. Poulson is a University of Nevada alum and proud Wolf Pack fan. She has spent a large part of her life delivering for UPS in Woodside, California. Her work appears in Best New Poets, Quarterly West, Gulf Coast, American Literary Review, Barrow Street, Booth, and other publications. She is seeking a publisher for her first manuscript, tentatively titled Workhorse. Find her at trpoulson.com.
There’s No Such Thing as a Nobody
The heifer who hurdled the moon
was worshipped by kings and buffoons.
They say her twin sister
was sold to a spinster
who captured those runaway spoons.
The Heaven of Work
contains no harps. No. It contains many
harps: mislabeled strings, missorted cords,
the missing and misloaded notes. No. Any
sinner knows our heaven shelters words
we used when lost in maps. No. We never
strayed from roads we knew. No. We always
find new ways. No. We snake forever
in forsaken lands, in numbered days—
and yes. Our heaven teems with labeled things:
snakes have numbers on their sides, long
in division. Yes. Our managers still sing
as lists. Yes. Production forks like tongues.
Yes. Wolves lie down with lambs. Yes we request
days off. Bosses fist bump us. Still say no.
This contributor appears in fixed forms (loosely), Issue 2 of Not Quite Right Literary Magazine. Read the full issue here.