This selection, chosen by guest editor L.M. Cole, is from Animal Unfit by Megan Nichols (Belle Point Press 2023).
Incipient Decline
That sun is all summer. No denying it yet the wind
carries a chill that suggests reprieve is on its way
soothing shoulder blade burns like a mother cooing
I’m sorry, I’m sorry—you just made me so mad
coaxing you into trusting seasons—trusting the heat
will come around in time. Existing as if
there’s no point in seeking shade when the sun
seems so determined. You’ve never been the sort
to obstruct the natural course of things. You let nature
beat you, like it chose you. Can’t you remember?
That bright cigarette end will burn anyone near it
only as long as there is anyone near it to burn.
Megan Nichols lives in the Arkansas Ozarks. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Iron Horse Literary Review, The Threepenny Review, Frontier Poetry and elsewhere. She was a finalist for Write Bloody’s 2021 Jack McCarthy Book Prize, named a Spring 2022 Brooklyn Poets Fellow, and serves as a poetry reader for Variant Literature and River Mouth Review.
L.M. Cole is a poet and artist residing in North Carolina. She is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Bulb Culture Collective whose writing and art have been published with The Pinch Journal, The McNeese Review, Five South, The Dodge, and many other excellent journals and magazines. She can be found on Twitter @_scoops__ and more of her work can be found at linktr.ee/lmcole 
