Today is a shoe. The lace loosens and has to be tightened again and again. It’s tempting to knot it. The sole worn against the daily routine erupts letting a toe stick out. You wonder if you can walk around with your tongue’s tip lolling between your lips. The headlines: storms will embrace homes at a hundred miles an hour. Pummel the windows and mumble at the doors. Rip the roof like a hallucinogen. Across the ocean homes are bursting because the neighbors hide hate in a missile they cannot aim. You wonder why chipmunks dash hole to hole. Change shoes and go for a jog. Kiss the wind, smile at the shin splints, buy a five-dollar coffee. Stare at the pebbles on the path. Grind them under your soul as you run back to the news. — DOUG VAN HOOSER
Doug Van Hooser splits his time between southern Wisconsin and Chicago. His poetry has appeared in Roanoke Review, The Courtship of Winds, After Hours, Wild Roof Journal, and Poetry Quarterly among other publications. His fiction can be found in Red Earth Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Bending Genres Journal. Doug’s plays have received readings at Chicago Dramatist Theatre and Three Cat Productions.