American Lunar Society
the only way to describe this is to describe a jackrabbit vanishing into sagebrush the red mountains the 13 foot woolly mammoth in love with the woolly rhino for the first time there was no air no water only 12,000 foot mountains and the moon’s wilderness the lava didn’t flow but it oozed sometimes like a mountain I listen to you skin wolves for fun don’t worry he says I promise not to waste any part of its body being in love makes me want to unload the dishwasher there are grizzlies in my head when we kiss and the canyon where the sun ate its first star some women will say I died the same week the dragonflies died that I was only a girl walking across a girl’s big mouth last night you said something awful and now the Amazon is burning and I don’t give a shit of course meteorites hit earth and kill things of course the moon doesn’t chase me anymore finally I’m alive finally I have a boyfriend who loves me
Coyote Calling Competition
The oceans never loved, and the coyotes howling into the San Gabriel Mountains would not howl back, even the herd of buffalo crawling out of the West Virginia hills would turn away from this heart of mine. I just kept driving until everything became a glacier or some ship, Utah’s largest outdoor adventure store. I just kept driving to the lighthouse, the lighthouse was closed, the mountain was screaming. It is true I chase whales that were never there, I’m tired of finding books about Benjamin Franklin— I feel the same way as Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman, but don’t we all? It is true I have a golden heart just sitting here. Should I dip it in water? Sink it in blue? Dear reader, I am tired of holding onto things gently, my best friend is afraid to ask her new boyfriend to take a selfie—just do it. The world might end tomorrow. Say it like this: I lost everything
and found half a moon, say loving you feels like finding an extinct New Zealand bird or a sleepy grey whale right off the coast of California. Say I started catching trains to the countryside and started a storm of blue, clouds somewhere over Tulsa. Say no one can speak the dead language I am tearing at.
About the Author:
Sarah Bates has an MFA in Poetry from Northern Michigan University and currently teaches at Southern Utah University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, Zone 3, The Rumpus, Best New Poets 2017, Seneca Review, and Hotel Amerika, among others. Her first chapbook, Tender, is now available from Diagram New Michigan Press. Twitter: @tricknastybates
About Weekly Flash Prose and Poetry:
CutBank Online features one work of flash prose or prose poetry every Monday. Submissions are free and open year-round. Send us your best work of 750 words or less at https://cutbank.submittable.com/submit.