Poet: Summer Robinson, Seattle, WA


Smalldoggies Poetry Feature #10: Summer Robinson, Seattle, WA
Selections from “Wolfman, Woke the Sleeper,” a work in progress.

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everyone wants to be coral bay


everyone wants to be
coral bay
I want to be nothing
coral bay
you want to be everything
coral bay
I think I might be
impossible
I think you are
entirely made of lung
let's see who can swallow
the sharpest hook

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not for all the nipples on glitter island


garrulous guppie
I watched you patiently consume yourself
not with your mouth
but with a will
no one who loved you gave you—
into your blood
a whole family of toy elephants

eventually it was like torturing a doll
there was no sound in the world for it

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there you go again drinking the lake of fire


it was the first day of spring
we went walking in the woods
as in the days before the war
as in the days I still owe you for

we found the lake in a valley of rubble

I was teaching you the difference between i miss you
and you are missing from me
when a bomb went off

no one was harmed—
you had it in you this whole time

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finally I ask about the door

he seems delighted
oh he says that's where I sleep—
inside is a mongolian wilderness
you are not me I say and thwack
the tiny drum
our hearts beat
on and on

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Summer Robinson is not a brain surgeon. Instead, she is a poet and story writer. Her work has appeared in literary journals and anthologies, including Fragments, LICK, and A Big Wind. Summer owns and operates Pilot Books, a small press bookstore in Seattle, Washington.

Find even more about Summer Robinson and Pilot Books at the official site, by clicking this link. Photo of the author, courtesy of the author.

Staff

More than one editor and/or contributor was responsible for the completion of this piece on NAILED.

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