Breadcrumb #428

ANDREW KNOTT

The streets are full of children missing
teeth and teething all over—
sharp bits emerging
from every corner, poking
and slowly slicing
the gumline of their minds.

Summertime has dappled them,
and the weight of the stones
(in their hands and in their pockets)
creates a flux in the field. 
The town is equally sunspotted.

Wind blows through a broken window
And whistles.
The children whistle
as they speak. Every tinkling of glass,
every throaty clang of a light pole
is an echo

Of a farm shut down,
boarded up,
machines halted and gone to seed. 
The chimes taken off the front porch
and sold.

There is so much space
in every direction.
Desire lines of highway
cross-cutting the original
sidewalks of the country. 

Missing it makes you rambunctious.
The children stomp their feet. 

• • •

Breadcrumb #289

LILY ARNELL

I’m a river that crashes into uncles, uncles that are balding and spotting and ripped at the knees. I'm a river that crashes into aunts who wade in pink and molded eggshells and moms who lick brown lipstick off the wrinkled corners of their mouths. I am a red sphere who bounces off white walls and white teeth. Mine are yellowed. Mine are cracking at the base. You look at me sideways when I say I haven't brushed them in two weeks. I am plaque-river. No, I am sad-sack-tributary. No, the heap of equal parts ‘thing’ and ‘nothing.’ No, I am jagged flop-rock wedged in your crooked heel and screening your callus for blood.

"I like shrimp," you say and wipe the powdered sugar from your upper lip. "I like really cold shrimp," you say and pull the bathroom door closed. I sit on the couch and wait and count the stains on the coffee table. Together we taint the landscape.

• • •