It’s just a fistful of little calms,

boats to carry your heartbreak away.

Sometimes I open their special case

just to touch them, lovingly,

like a father. Like a child.

I say to them, as I sometimes say to you,

my hat is in my hand, my heart

is in my throat, please, love me like I

don’t deserve. Sometimes I say

to you, learn to think of me as sturdy.

Learn to love your narcotics,

I sometimes say, your other half.

Learn to Love Your Narcotics

poems by corey mesler

Corey Mesler is the owner of Burke’s Book Store, in Memphis, Tennessee, one of the country’s oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores.  He has published poetry and fiction in numerous journals including Turnrow, Rattle, Pindeldyboz, Quick Fiction, American Poetry Journal, Thema, Mars Hill Review, Adirondack Review, Poet Lore and others.  He has also been a book reviewer for The Memphis Commercial Appeal and Memphis Flyer.  A short story of his was chosen for the 2002 edition of New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best. Talk, his first novel, appeared in 2002. His 2nd novel, We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon, came out in January 2006. His novels have received praise from Lee Smith, John Grisham, Robert Olen Butler, Frederick Barthelme, George Singleton, Marshall Chapman, Steve Stern and others. His latest poetry chapbooks are Short Story and Other Short Stories (2006), The Hole in Sleep (2006), The Agoraphobe’s Pandiculations (2006), and The Chloe Poems (2007). His poem, "Sweet Annie Divine," was chosen for Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac. His first full-length collection of poetry, Some Identity Problems, is due out in 2007. He also claims to have written "Dang Me."  Most importantly, he is Toby and Chloe’s dad and Cheryl’s husband. He can be found at www.coreymesler.com.

More About the Stalking

He laid out tools, soft as old currency.

He took the mirror image of himself

and corrected it with permanent markers.

He unlisted his phone, changed the

name above his door. And, finally, when

the morning came, he sat down and

wrote a poem. In the poem he talked about

his ferocious need, his gathering

need. In the poem he put her name some-

where near the top, a tiara.

And when he finished the poem—this was

days later—he put everything else

away, and began a new part of his life.

In this new life he was a man who had

no obligation to write poems, or change himself.

He was just about golden, on a road to insignificance.