From Part Four of Kristin Abraham’s book The Disappearing Cowboy Trick

The Disappearing Cowboy Trick

He’d felt it at birth—this wreck—he’d
predicted: our days stopping up
that slot in the sky. He’d felt it—that omen,
sun-beaten, that vision. His curse to bear witness,
to proselytize: They have a stink, these
bodies, full of nothings and nevers. They’re forged
out of woodsharps—our hands full, our eyes.
Less than dolls, he told us. Your hearts dull
dollars—dented dollars—poor flies. Thus, this ending,
this moment, this way to unfold; thus, it’s done:
quick as thought, our chalk teeth dissolve. Not one
spreads his wings, not one self expunged. Can’t
cogitate scapegrace, retelling or rapture—
mercy by now a million thumbs in our eyes.

 

—

This selection comes from Kristen Abraham’s book The Disappearing Cowboy Trick, available from Horse Less Press. Purchase your copy here!

Kristin Abraham was born and raised in Michigan. She currently lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her husband, three dogs, and two cats. She teaches English at a community college in Wyoming and serves as editor-in-chief and poetry editor for the literary journal Spittoon (www.spittoonmag.com).

T.A. Noonan is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently four sparks fall: a novella (Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, 2013) and, with Erin Elizabeth Smith, Skate or Die (Dusie Kollektiv, 2014). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Reunion: The Dallas Review, West Wind Review, Hobart, Ninth Letter, and Phoebe, among others. A weightlifter, crafter, priestess, and all-around woman of action, she serves as the Associate Editor of Sundress Publications, Founding Editor of Flaming Giblet Press, and Literary Arts Director for the Sundress Academy of the Arts.

From Part Four of Kristin Abraham’s book The Disappearing Cowboy Trick

Shuffle

The magician had gone through ten rabbits unaware—they all pulled
the same, he said; they pulled long and not long, they whirled and
made dizzy. Backstage, props sobbed and blotted their own slick
petals, peeling paint, sticky eyes.  How groggy this light, he said, How
the sun also stutters.  Backstage, the tiger and the sequin-girls stood
guard; the others—saws, scarves, doves—rusted and crumbled in
attempts to run off.  So, the curtain came down; so, the lights went
up. We turned—we always turn—but the room is a box stuck with
swords, and he is a pile of silks and handcuffs.  He is also running
off—the echo of is this your card now a language of palm and coin,
now the weight of the ace up our sleeve.

 

—

This selection comes from Kristen Abraham’s book The Disappearing Cowboy Trick, available from Horse Less Press. Purchase your copy here!

Kristin Abraham was born and raised in Michigan. She currently lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her husband, three dogs, and two cats. She teaches English at a community college in Wyoming and serves as editor-in-chief and poetry editor for the literary journal Spittoon (www.spittoonmag.com).

T.A. Noonan is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently four sparks fall: a novella (Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, 2013) and, with Erin Elizabeth Smith, Skate or Die (Dusie Kollektiv, 2014). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Reunion: The Dallas Review, West Wind Review, Hobart, Ninth Letter, and Phoebe, among others. A weightlifter, crafter, priestess, and all-around woman of action, she serves as the Associate Editor of Sundress Publications, Founding Editor of Flaming Giblet Press, and Literary Arts Director for the Sundress Academy of the Arts.

From Part Three of Kristin Abraham’s book The Disappearing Cowboy Trick

Little Red Riding Hood Hides Out

She arrives being brave—I’m being
very brave—so much of the evidence
has been burned.  She arrives trying
harder, having been balled up
at the base of the bed, lying beyond
easily.  She’s lost the ability to fly
herself through, surrounded
by physicians—or just one of them
with one great light strapped
to his head:  “My dear, it seems
that to say ‘I’ is an admission
you don’t want to make.”

 

—

This selection comes from Kristen Abraham’s book The Disappearing Cowboy Trick, available from Horse Less Press. Purchase your copy here!

Kristin Abraham was born and raised in Michigan. She currently lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her husband, three dogs, and two cats. She teaches English at a community college in Wyoming and serves as editor-in-chief and poetry editor for the literary journal Spittoon (www.spittoonmag.com).

T.A. Noonan is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently four sparks fall: a novella (Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, 2013) and, with Erin Elizabeth Smith, Skate or Die (Dusie Kollektiv, 2014). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Reunion: The Dallas Review, West Wind Review, Hobart, Ninth Letter, and Phoebe, among others. A weightlifter, crafter, priestess, and all-around woman of action, she serves as the Associate Editor of Sundress Publications, Founding Editor of Flaming Giblet Press, and Literary Arts Director for the Sundress Academy of the Arts.

From Part Three of Kristin Abraham’s book The Disappearing Cowboy Trick

Story

She speaks into her hands,

brightens, pinks;

her lips touch and feint.

For the time being

was a glove, at least

shaped like a glove,

(in which case what else—

It’s not that she moves strangely

but it’s the ways she makes

her movements strange:

points to the blue constant

vein in her wrist as she leans:

skin like taut cotton, stretches.

The sound is a patch of grass

(I want to be small—

(I want to live inside of it—

but the vein is a soft

tract, a slight blue,

and she begins there,

at the edge.

—

This selection comes from Kristen Abraham’s book The Disappearing Cowboy Trick, available from Horse Less Press. Purchase your copy here!

Kristin Abraham was born and raised in Michigan. She currently lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her husband, three dogs, and two cats. She teaches English at a community college in Wyoming and serves as editor-in-chief and poetry editor for the literary journal Spittoon (www.spittoonmag.com).

T.A. Noonan is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently four sparks fall: a novella (Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, 2013) and, with Erin Elizabeth Smith, Skate or Die (Dusie Kollektiv, 2014). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Reunion: The Dallas Review, West Wind Review, Hobart, Ninth Letter, and Phoebe, among others. A weightlifter, crafter, priestess, and all-around woman of action, she serves as the Associate Editor of Sundress Publications, Founding Editor of Flaming Giblet Press, and Literary Arts Director for the Sundress Academy of the Arts.

From Part Two of Kristin Abraham’s book The Disappearing Cowboy Trick

The Hero Lyric

He was supposed to tell someone
about his heartache:
a soul possessed by bees,
perfectly crotched,
a stiff-all-over gait—
but that was a long time ago.
He had already looked at
the eclipse & went blind:
went “the business-end
of a bad mistake.”  So he died
until he could no longer
ignore the sound of pebbles
skittering around him;
he died until he could
no longer feel the loss
of body.  Then
he died a little less.

—

This selection comes from Kristen Abraham’s book The Disappearing Cowboy Trick, available from Horse Less Press. Purchase your copy here!

Kristin Abraham was born and raised in Michigan. She currently lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her husband, three dogs, and two cats. She teaches English at a community college in Wyoming and serves as editor-in-chief and poetry editor for the literary journal Spittoon (www.spittoonmag.com).

T.A. Noonan is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently four sparks fall: a novella (Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, 2013) and, with Erin Elizabeth Smith, Skate or Die (Dusie Kollektiv, 2014). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Reunion: The Dallas Review, West Wind Review, Hobart, Ninth Letter, and Phoebe, among others. A weightlifter, crafter, priestess, and all-around woman of action, she serves as the Associate Editor of Sundress Publications, Founding Editor of Flaming Giblet Press, and Literary Arts Director for the Sundress Academy of the Arts.