28,065 Nights

I tell your stories to keep myself alive. I tell you new stories. I speak them
aloud to you when no one is around, the way you used to talk to Grandpa
in your bedroom after his death. The stories play on repeat in my head. I
write them down. I tell them to Elliott when he asks. A year later, he still
remembered you, but I don’t know how long his memories from two will
last. To him, you will be more story than person. Are we always more story
than person, words thicker than water? I got the wave of your hair and your
lack of wisdom teeth. I did not get your metabolism that let you eat six hot
dogs at one cookout, but I get to keep that story, more necessary now than
blood or breath.

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This selection comes from 28,065 Nights, available from River Glass Books. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Erin Elizabeth Smith.

Katie Manning is the founding editor-in-chief of Whale Road Review and a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. She is the author of Tasty Other, which won the 2016 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, and her fifth chapbook, 28,065 Nights, is newly available from River Glass Books. Her poems have appeared in American Journal of Nursing, december, The Lascaux Review, New Letters, Rogue Agent, Stirring, THRUSH, Verse Daily, and many other venues. Twitter Handle: @iamkatmann Erin Elizabeth Smith is the Creative Director at the Sundress Academy for the Arts and the Managing Editor of Sundress Publications. She is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, and her work has appeared in Guernica, Ecotone, Crab Orchard, and Mid-American. Smith is a Distinguished Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Tennessee.

Which Way Do You Want to Go?

I ask this question more than you might think, mustering my best Muppet
voice. And now my 4 year old watches Labyrinth as I did at his age, and I am
becoming you: shuffling around the kitchen in the same style of open-toed
house slippers that you always wore, baking chocolate rolls or biscuits. Yes,
which way? The blue hands insist on an answer. Sometimes I look down at
my hands and see yours kneading the dough. I would choose this if I had
a choice.

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This selection comes from 28,065 Nights, available from River Glass Books. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Erin Elizabeth Smith.

Katie Manning is the founding editor-in-chief of Whale Road Review and a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. She is the author of Tasty Other, which won the 2016 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, and her fifth chapbook, 28,065 Nights, is newly available from River Glass Books. Her poems have appeared in American Journal of Nursing, december, The Lascaux Review, New Letters, Rogue Agent, Stirring, THRUSH, Verse Daily, and many other venues. Twitter Handle: @iamkatmann Erin Elizabeth Smith is the Creative Director at the Sundress Academy for the Arts and the Managing Editor of Sundress Publications. She is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, and her work has appeared in Guernica, Ecotone, Crab Orchard, and Mid-American. Smith is a Distinguished Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Tennessee.

I Haven’t Eaten Fried Bologna Since You Died

When I spent my days with you, I’d watch you fry a pink circle brown,
unwrap bright yellow cheese, and squeeze ketchup onto bread. You’d
cut the sandwich in two and put half on each plate. Then we’d sit down
together on the couch, and I’d ask, Can I have your half? And you would swap
our sandwiches, even though they were the same, even if mine already had
a bite taken out. Still, thirty years later, I swear your side tasted the best.

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This selection comes from 28,065 Nights, available from River Glass Books. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Erin Elizabeth Smith.

Katie Manning is the founding editor-in-chief of Whale Road Review and a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. She is the author of Tasty Other, which won the 2016 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, and her fifth chapbook, 28,065 Nights, is newly available from River Glass Books. Her poems have appeared in American Journal of Nursing, december, The Lascaux Review, New Letters, Rogue Agent, Stirring, THRUSH, Verse Daily, and many other venues. Twitter Handle: @iamkatmann Erin Elizabeth Smith is the Creative Director at the Sundress Academy for the Arts and the Managing Editor of Sundress Publications. She is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, and her work has appeared in Guernica, Ecotone, Crab Orchard, and Mid-American. Smith is a Distinguished Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Tennessee.

Thomas Anthony

You didn’t even know your mom was pregnant. She sewed new dresses to
hide it. When the time came, all of you kids were sent off to the neighbor’s
house, and your oldest sister had to tell you why. Your mom gave birth, but
the boy was blue. It looked so perfect otherwise, you’d say, the still body an “it”
in your child’s memory, more like a doll than a real baby. If he were born today,
he’d live, you’d sometimes add, making him real again. Then we’d talk about
your mother and make ourselves heavy with her loss. The last time you told
me this story, I realized I’d never asked the baby’s name.

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This selection comes from 28,065 Nights, available from River Glass Books. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Erin Elizabeth Smith.

Katie Manning is the founding editor-in-chief of Whale Road Review and a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. She is the author of Tasty Other, which won the 2016 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, and her fifth chapbook, 28,065 Nights, is newly available from River Glass Books. Her poems have appeared in American Journal of Nursing, december, The Lascaux Review, New Letters, Rogue Agent, Stirring, THRUSH, Verse Daily, and many other venues. Twitter Handle: @iamkatmann Erin Elizabeth Smith is the Creative Director at the Sundress Academy for the Arts and the Managing Editor of Sundress Publications. She is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, and her work has appeared in Guernica, Ecotone, Crab Orchard, and Mid-American. Smith is a Distinguished Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Tennessee.

Your Death Explained in Birds

Death is the great egret at the swamp, picking newly hatched green herons
from their cypress nest. I am the pregnant woman on land looking for
something to throw. I am the mother heron, too small to fight back, and the
runt deep in the nest. Death is the egret dropping fresh young birds into
the swamp with barely a ripple. I am the pregnant woman standing horrified
and helpless. I am the mother heron shrieking and snapping on the branch
below. I am the smallest green heron in the nest. I stick my head out in the
stillness after everyone else has gone.

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This selection comes from 28,065 Nights, available from River Glass Books. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Erin Elizabeth Smith.

Katie Manning is the founding editor-in-chief of Whale Road Review and a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. She is the author of Tasty Other, which won the 2016 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, and her fifth chapbook, 28,065 Nights, is newly available from River Glass Books. Her poems have appeared in American Journal of Nursing, december, The Lascaux Review, New Letters, Rogue Agent, Stirring, THRUSH, Verse Daily, and many other venues. Twitter Handle: @iamkatmann Erin Elizabeth Smith is the Creative Director at the Sundress Academy for the Arts and the Managing Editor of Sundress Publications. She is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, and her work has appeared in Guernica, Ecotone, Crab Orchard, and Mid-American. Smith is a Distinguished Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Tennessee