The 2River View 19.4 (Summer 2015)
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Marcia Hurlow

Death Wish of the Phonetician

Every word kills me.
If there are ghosts
I want to be one
who sits here adrift
in this cushioned
corner of couch
surrounded by back
vowels round as pillows,
who rests to formants
of high front vowels
whistling in time
to tunes of the spheres.
No consonants, please.
Don’t obstruct the air.

The Wife of the Traveling Salesman

When you have left again,
this day reduced to a thin
cinder of sunlight caught
on your back fender, the dark
drops faster and repeats
without gathering leaf,
bird or thought, every word
a slight variation not worth
attention, a wavering drone
n the same starless night.

Marcia Hurlow teaches creative writing, journalism and linguistics at Asbury University. Her most recent chapbook, Green Man in Suburbia, won the Backwards City Review Press contest; and her first full-length collection, Anomie, won the Edges Prize from WordTech.

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