Clint Eastwood Sun

By Lannie Stabile

This spittoon of a day 
claws into the sky 
& wrings out a heat index 
of 96 degrees
 
We all do 
backstrokes in the pool
of community sweat, 
heat strokes 
on the asphalt
 
Like an ancient curmudgeon, 
                                                       the sun is 
hollering at us 
for existing 
Get off the lawn
Use inside voices 
Bite your tongues and 
                                                       lips 
                                                       and hot ghosts
 
It's a center of the earth 
kind of afternoon

---

My Greatest Fear Is Turning Into My Mother

By Lannie Stabile

​Childhood was boxes and crates and hope chest and bunk bed and pillows and sleepless nights and keep the light on for reading and utility bills and cable bills and mortgage and no insurance until 16 and scraped elbows and chipped teeth and busted head from softball and it doesn’t look like you need stitches and sewing patterns and newspapers and drawings from preschool and expired Farmer Jack ads and birth certificate somewhere around here and holes in walls and no room to walk and cigarette air and black-ring tub and is that a roach and dog and catcatcat and hairy couch and hairy chair and hairballs and dust balls and moth balls and broken Bissell and five-foot trophies and perfect attendance awards and Lifetime originals and NCIS and please record The Nanny and crusted pans and sticky pots and food bank beans and mayonnaise sandwiches and first kiss and first handjob and first blowjob and first bruise when Dad finds out and 
 
man knees and man hands and man breath and man beer and man vodka and man against man and tantrums and bipolar episodes and 9-1-1 and suicide and crying before school and growing up fast and holding onto too much and 
 
can’t move and can’t breathe and can’t wait to leave and

hoarder and 

mother.

---

Lannie Stabile (she/her), a queer Detroiter, often says while some write like a turtleneck sweater, she writes like a Hawaiian shirt. A finalist for the 2019/2020 Glass Chapbook Series and semi-finalist for the Button Poetry 2018 Chapbook Contest, she is usually working on new chapbook ideas, or, when desperate, on her neglected YA novel. Works are published/forthcoming in Entropy, Pidgeonholes, Glass Poetry, 8 Poems, Okay Donkey, and more. Lannie currently holds the position of Managing Editor at Barren Magazine and is a member of the MMPR Collective. She was thrice nominated for Best of the Net 2019.

Twitter handle: @LannieStabile