110
Noel C. Hoffman

​
begin on green, where the road changes.
birth your vacancy into that reedy ditch.
touch it with the keys, the key is the birth.
walk a line. drive a curve.
 
says pappy --- speed up, clank, clink, faster, more ---
know your name and hair have no innocence no longer.
pop that cap off. grain. dew. mist.
try to shoot out your virgin.
 
says pappy --- have all the bottle, chaos be all inside the glass ---
yellow be the slightest medium to nice anxiety.
lose your steps, push all you can on them invisible brakes.
descend past the signs, hear their aluminum bark.
 
says pappy --- wreck that red out your eyes ---
hit 110.  
glass be so sharp you hardly feel it at all.
hear yourself be so cold as the warm runs out.
 
heaven is the upturned horizon.
listen to where the river put down its calm.
breath does what the gasoline does.
happiness does what the ice does.

 

About the Author:  Noel C. Hoffman is a Canadian raised in Alabama. He holds a B.A. in International Trade from Auburn University and an M.B.A. from the University of New Orleans. He is a fiction editor with Kudzu House Quarterly, works with Gigantic Magazine out of Brooklyn, and cofounded and coedits the writing community www.simmr.org. His work can be found in Fiction Southeast, Newfound, Crack the Spine, The Monarch Review, and elsewhere. Contact him here. 

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