The oldish man with the craggy face of a forgotten character actor told the barber while paying for his Marine-style haircut that he had to get home to milk the dog. It’s all a weird kind of poetry – not just the words, but also the gaps in-between. Merriam-Webster.com lists the 10 words that users have looked up most often over the past 24 hours. Tonight “love” was No. 3, and No. 4 was “irony.” Most nights I’m the last one to go to bed, feeling along the wall in the dark for the door that I know must be there.

 

–Howie Good’s latest book of poetry is The Complete Absence of Twilight (2014) from MadHat Press. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely, who does most of the real work.