Afterburn
by Shann Palmer
Drained by repetition,
she is left squinty-eyed,
slipped into plain brown.
No news is no news is
the rope in her hands
is a red rubber ball
pliably round, she is convinced
they talk about her.
when she's good. . .
but on an off night, she is alone
in her car in the bookstore
parking lot eating onion rings.
Voices whirr, click, in her head she
tallies time spent stamping out fires.
to reckon memory, shake the mulberry trees,
smell saltwater and oil, Baytown, Texas
where it is always summer in her mind.
Shann Palmer, a Texan living in Virginia, met poetry in first grade reciting "Eletelephony" at a PTA meeting. She continued performing poems by Kipling, Frost, Langston Hughes, and others through high school. A professional musician and music teacher, she has attended workshops with Denise Duhamel, David Wojahn, Jane Mead, David Baker, and Tony Hoagland. Published online and in print, she sells chapbooks at art6 Gallery in Richmond, Virginia where she is a board member and volunteer. Active with the James River Writers and the Poetry Society of Virginia, she maintains a calendar of events for central Virginia on her website FlashPaperPoetry.
http://www.msnusers.com/FlashPaperPoetry/