Ars Poetica

The sky opens and out fall a million rabid cabbage

patch dolls. They double dutch with pig guts on the corners,

crash the neighborhood hot tubs, gurgle jet fuel.

Light-bright PEZ dispenser eyes, crochet needle ribs,

eyelet hooks for eyes, titanium chains, the self-same.

They want to say a thing without being implicated by it.

They want to scream down a culvert like a blood tube

and the dead will carry their voices to you.

---

Erin Little is the author of the poetry collection Personal Injury, winner of the 2023 Chestnut Review chapbook contest. Her writing has appeared in Crab Creek Review, HAD, Maudlin House, New Orleans Review, Prelude and others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Louisiana State University where she teaches composition and poetry. Find her online @little__erin.