A Poem By Paula Mendoza

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Someone No One Everyone Anyone

and I put all this blood in, but things just get sticky
No one’s a mess anyone

wants to pick up after, so I marched my ass down
to the shack that flashed

LIVE MODELS in red and asked if they needed
someone good with light.

Everyone was bronzed
and someone was covered in glitter.

“Here,” I said, “hold
that glow

lower” and motioned to someone
who shone a weird green

light too high
the shadows made everyone’s eyes onstage look

like pulsing suckholes.
Limbs in that angle

seem tentacled with darknesses.
I tsked, “That’s no way to shine a body.”

Paula Mendoza’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in PANK, elimae, and The Offending Adam. She has an MFA from the University of Michigan and currently lives in Austin, TX.

Do you need a poem with which to charm the Valentine for whom you forgot to get a gift? There is sure to be something in here that will work. You may contact the editor at [email protected].