
An early dinner
I skip all around the paper
eating my
way through the words
swallowing ideas whole
they sit on my stomach
like paper mâché
rocks
I unbutton
my pants to help release the pressure
burp up nouns verbs prepositions
gassy commas spicey periods
the greasy taste of adverbs
sits
heavy
on my tongue
a black lager washes away the raunchy taste of literary
indigestion
© Sharon Lopez Mooney, “An early dinner”, originally published in Brown Bag LLC, Issue #6 Spring, ed. Benji Knight, Knoxville, TN 2023