Poetry | Word Riot

The Post-meal Cigarette by Ben Richardson

Listen to a podcast of Ben Richardson’s “The Post-meal Cigarette.”

The trembling ash of my trembling cigarette falls to the

As I burrow my chin into my shoulder I realize I’m a frame— A bone formed easel whose skin stretches

In mornings past I had oftenfound the diffused gray hint of early morning light to be not unlike our warm

As she walks into my room, I can’t helpbut see an oddity, a limp, in hersmile.

Off come

Listen to a podcast of Alex Odom’s “The Smell of Burnt Metal.”

– like dust burning off a radiator, a

come midnight, what does this body care that my Odysseus is lost at sea–it bends by the clay of instinct,

The 18 year old boy I refer to in my gradebook as “Birthmark,” for the cafe au lait stain smoothed

The Guest Room

In her brother’s old bed he nightmares playing tennis with a hand grenade

and an angel drops

Sidewalking

I saw a man in black glasses and a tan trench coatwith wide eyes and a scarf striped cream

When he ran out of jurors for a trial, an Ohio judge sent sheriff’s deputies to the local Wal-Mart to issue