s h a n n o n t h a r p





Cary Grant 




1

An airplane of a movie burns,
its script so rich you can’t see
straight.  A lamp lit next to

a soft window coaxes a tiger
from the sky—hell of a wrench
thrown to cornstalks.


2

Needing to feed yourself,
you imagine
an unforgiving and

let go.  Narrow,
wary, air shambles like
a walk not quite your own.


3

Prat falls look
a pretty job.  Were the screwball
honed

any more, we’d all be
a little less
wrinkled.


4

As preyed upon, the mind
writhes. Do you
suppose

suspicion is for
when time is
a botch. 





Blue collar comedy



Someone hits
a whistle

and dances.
A rabbit

in a rigged
pit

hobbles,
conscious

of a flawed hop.
Cattle as soggy

props needle
into green.

Blasted clear
and shattered,

the skin’s
nation’s

a slow notion
of marrow,

pulse
just

that.
All we ask

is that
you make us laugh. 

We’ve plenty
of contempt

for the
genuine.
«±    ±»

shannontharp lives in Seattle where she's an MFA candidate at the University of Washington.  Her work has
appeared in Dicey Brown, Furrow, Rust Buckle, Shampoo, and Mead composition notebooks.


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