a poem

(We’ll be running three other poems by John upcoming soon as a feature at the New Pop Lit site.)

Pull that hangnail rising like a flag

flapping in a breeze of non-concern

though catching my eye like a barbed

hook replete with rankling hairs so not

letting my attention go, but racking it

with the thought of tear and blood

—the anxiety in anticipating when it will rip—

and pain the owner—who might then regret

his indolence and indifference when more

raw flesh breathes the new air in crimson

exposure as the finger-end resembles more rag

than bone I silently urged him to not leave alone.

XXX

(We’ll give John’s bio when we run his other three poems. This is a Sneak Preview. We can tell you that John appears in our print zeen, Extreme Zeen Two, still available at the POP SHOP.)