The Phillumenist
by Rachel Bunting
for Shane
It’s not the covers, you see,
it’s the combs—each slender
stick always the same as the one
before. There is something
in the uniformity that makes
them unique, makes them desired.
It begins this way:
the thick snap that separates
a stick from the pack, the quick
snicker along the striking surface,
and a flare—always that beautiful,
crackling flare that makes me believe
it will never go out.
I always believe it will never go out.
All the books are empty now.
I know which fires I have set,
and those I can never extinguish.
________________________
Rachel Bunting is a born and bred South Jersey girl living between the
Delaware River and the Pine Barrens. Her poems can be found in
Journal of New Jersey Poets, Mad Poets Review, the Edison Literary
Review, and in the online journals Wicked Alice and The Barefoot Muse.
◄ Previous Page Apple Valley Review, Spring 2007 Next page ►
for Shane
It’s not the covers, you see,
it’s the combs—each slender
stick always the same as the one
before. There is something
in the uniformity that makes
them unique, makes them desired.
It begins this way:
the thick snap that separates
a stick from the pack, the quick
snicker along the striking surface,
and a flare—always that beautiful,
crackling flare that makes me believe
it will never go out.
I always believe it will never go out.
All the books are empty now.
I know which fires I have set,
and those I can never extinguish.
________________________
Rachel Bunting is a born and bred South Jersey girl living between the
Delaware River and the Pine Barrens. Her poems can be found in
Journal of New Jersey Poets, Mad Poets Review, the Edison Literary
Review, and in the online journals Wicked Alice and The Barefoot Muse.
◄ Previous Page Apple Valley Review, Spring 2007 Next page ►
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Apple Valley Review:
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 2, Number 1
(Spring 2007)
Copyright © 2007
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 2, Number 1
(Spring 2007)
Copyright © 2007
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
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