by Tony Schanuel
Extermination in Reverse
I leave home for home.
The bed folds back into a couch.
Cardboard opens into mouths & magic
markers name boxes after rooms
I’ve entered. Four called Books.
A cockroach wedged in the sliding door,
antennae splayed like angel hair.
The price for assassination has increased.
He says he writes poetry as bodies drop
from the walls, belly up. We find them
by thirst. One trapped under a glass
tumbler, another in the sink. To drown
is the same as to suffocate.
We were wrong about extinction.
The pool key doesn’t work.
The air writes its own eulogies.
They always return to spite the sun.
Usually, I’ve left by now.
Shannon Austin (she/her) is a writer from Baltimore, MD, with an MFA in poetry from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Her work has appeared in Drunk Monkeys, Rust + Moth, Nimrod Journal, Okay Donkey, and elsewhere. She can be found online at shannonaustin.net and on Twitter @gogopoetranger.
Tony Schanuel is an award-winning photographer and visual artist who has fused a professional background in photography, digital technology, and painting and mark making to create fine art that transcends those mediums. His work has been featured in Digital Imaging Magazine, Computer Graphic Magazine, Wild Heart Journal, St. Louis Design Magazine, and is a featured artist in Cyber Palette and Extreme Graphics, two books showcasing digital artists and their work. He has exhibited at the Florence Biennale and his art is held in private and corporate collections including the Fine Arts Museum of Houston permanent photographic collection.