Arsenic Lobster poetry journal	Final Issue 2018
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Dorothy, Kansas Ted Lardner Facts march away like fence posts to the horizon where Kansas space prickles the barbs on the wire. That sigh you sense inside you gathering is just the small version, just an eyelash, left by the storm. Do you know how it is? Go ahead and blame it on the head bump, the last concussive stars clearing from your eyes. Still, it might be more than that. Look at him, the little dog, curled up on the bed, fake asleep, one ear lifted: he knows. Aunt Em rattling her teeth about hog futures. The sour-puss neighbor always dropping by. Maybe the tall one, polite, good looking, lowers his glance on you a beat too long, and you know you just know, he’s been there, too. An understanding passing between you like a boat you are paddling for all you are worth through a maelstrom of flying cows. Next day? Off to school, then work! Stay busy. That’s how to cope. Still, every now and again, one sweet nothing Tuesday studying AP World, and the golden road you are reading about starts to wiggle up like a thread off the page. You watch it pull the whole shebang burning desert loose, lifting for the sky. Or out the tinted window where you stand, your shift dragging the drive-thru at Applebees. The manager comes. Posture’s real creaky. The dude, pulled around out front? Got straw coming out his hair. Where was that 12 oz sirloin he asked for? What is your manager saying again? There’s, like, wind in your headset. The hood’s so loud it sounds like a train. Look and see when your hand stops shaking. A stampede roar coming at you in the distance.

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