Spring/Summer 2015
FURNITURE
Over her cabinet she hid her spare
toys—stars she didn’t play with anymore,
cracked hearts her parents never let her wear—
The kind of things she wanted but ignored.
She scattered vowels across everything—
Décor, she thought—but meant to hide the sting
in her cold eyes when they looked at but missed
the gun. Putting away that last bullet
was beyond her—so cool—gray—dull. It’s
too late—she can’t forgive her misplaced kiss.
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Mark J. Mitchell studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver, George Hitchcock and Barbara Hull. His work has appeared in various periodicals over the last thirty five years, as well as the anthologiesIt has also been nominated for both Pushcart Prizes and The Best of the Net. Good Poems, American Places,Hunger Enough, Retail Woes and Line Drives. Two full length collections are in the works: Lent 1999 is coming soon from Leaf Garden Press and This Twilight World will be published by Popcorn Press.. His chapbook, Three Visitors has recently been published by Negative Capability Press. Artifacts and Relics, another chapbook, is forthcoming from Folded Word and his novel, Knight Prisoner, was recently published by Vagabondage Press and a another novel, A Book of Lost Songs is coming soon from Wild Child Publishing. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the documentarian and filmmaker Joan Juster.