August 2022
Bio Note: A Washington based author, poet, and educator, my poems and stories have appeared in many international literary magazines, journals and anthologies such as the Eunioa Review, Verse-Virtual, and Anti-Heroin Chic. My most recent poetry/fiction collections include Serpent’s Tooth: Poems, Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories, and Flytraps (2022). Currently, I enjoy writing, turning wood, participating in “virtual” poetry readings, and fishing along the Hood Canal.
Animatronic Distraction
Twisting the steampunk wind-up key
on my mechanical dog’s brass butt, I sent it
scurrying across the dinner table, disrupting
decorum, exasperating my Grandmother
delighting all siblings, and amusing our father
who’d just finished his second beer after pulling
an ER double-shift and needed my hospital work
diversion to drag his mind away from patients who
flatlined during surgery or post-op situations
where he confronted teary-eyed family members
explained collapsing stints, aortic aneurysms,
imploding brain tumors, and tired bodies
rejecting heart transplants…. Dad spat out
a mouthful of Pabst Blue Ribbon suds and liquid
barley bubble clusters emerged from his nostrils as my
toy beagle stopped at his plate, stood up on its haunches
twisted its head left to right, sniffed up and down,
opened and closed its maw four times then barked.
The tinny voice brought a smile to my father’s
exhausted face, his sense of daily victories and defeats
momentarily suppressed by a miniature, gutless,
unemotional creature of gears, neither dependent
on vital organs nor overseen by medics in scrubs—
just a faux canine sans grooming, sans poop patrol.
Originally published in publication
MEK Kicks
(Or Nell’s Methyl Ethyl Ketone Diversions: RIP)
Nell helped her younger brothers build
model airplanes and Aurora monster kits,
break plastic parts free from sprues and runners
trim rough edges with pen-style art knives
before consulting garbled, faded instructions
and blurred, surrealistic diagrams.
They painted each item using tooth picks
for detail, brushes for spaces inviting
broad strokes; Nell would bite down
on uncapped glue tips, chew clear dried plastic
apply pin-drip cement to each model hole
join and bind pieces with surgical precision.
Nell’s brothers grew up, left bookshelf models
behind: undusted, neglected, ignored as they shot hoops,
played soccer, spent alone time with girlfriends.
Hobby became habit as Nell sniffed their remaining
tubes of adhesive, snorted polystyrene globs on Glad Wrap,
suffocated on fumes & clingfilm that blocked her trachea.
Originally published in publication
©2022 Sterling Warner
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