NEW POETRY

You walk the familiar steps
like a familiar. There
are cracks in the concrete
and ants in the cracks.
There’s a garden hose on
fire, its stream a dragon.
Above you gargoyles
gargle your name and
the porch shifts like an
ice floe. The key still
fits the lock and the
family that greets you,
half-heartedly it’s true,
resembles your real family.
Getting home is only the
first step. Step four or five
is you must become yourself.

COREY MESLER has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Gargoyle, Lunch Ticket, Five Points, Good Poems American Places, and New Stories from the South. He has published over 45 books of fiction and poetry.  With his wife he owns Burke’s Book Store (est. 1875) in Memphis.