Size / / /

So many years have passed

since the tragic loss of your bosom,

described by Plato himself

as surpassing the power of language—

all across our American highways,

the slick tableaux of truck stops

speak to the same want

for nature’s koan, for adipose

with or without gowns thin as tissues.

Tonight, more than Athens,

more than the cinders of Alexandria

or this daily strain on democracy,

I mourn your lost breasts.

If only Plato thought to note

whether they were haiku or sestinas.

If only we, too, could be

loved for what costs us nothing.


Michael Meyerhofer’s second book, Blue Collar Eulogies, is forthcoming from Steel Toe Books. His first book, Leaving Iowa, won the Liam Rector First Book Award. He has also published four chapbooks. His work has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Strange Horizons, Ploughshares, Quick Fiction, River Styx and others. Michael can be reached by email at: mrmeyerhofer@bsu.edu.



Michael Meyerhofer is the author of a fantasy series and several books of poetry. His work has appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Analog, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and other journals. For more info and an embarrassing childhood photo, visit troublewithhammers.com.
Current Issue
18 Sep 2023

Ama’s arm rested protectively around the girl’s shoulder as the giant bird glided above, its head angling right to left. Violet-black wings soared across a cloudless sky, blocking the sun’s midday rays and swathing sections of the village in deep shadow. Given its size, this argentavis was one of her first, but too far above for her to differentiate by name. Even across the distance, Ama could feel its heartbeat synced to hers, their lives intertwined until death.
She is leaving the world that is pink with desire, on her gray cardboard rocket ship.
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