Metempsychosis

I believed I had someone else’s skin beneath my fingernails.

I believed ellipses were Lilliputian prints of panini recipes.

I believed in Sally Field, in corncob pipes, and Thursday night sitcoms on NBC.

I believed in photosynthesis and polygons.

Often it wasn’t what I believed that was worth believing but the two-headed ballerina, the winged Ohioan, the mysterious Queen Latifah.

I once believed in space travel and Star Trek but I realized it was more practical to believe in email and couples counseling. At least that's what I've been told.

I believed in the stuff I was told unless it was coded with a hot color. 

(I believe blue is a cold color.) I situated myself between belief and smoothies.

I paid a traffic fine I believed was incorrectly attributed to wreckless genuflecting/flickting.

I believed in Monopoly and spin the baby doll. I believed in 7 seconds in heaven.

    6 measles splaying

    5 Holden Caulfields

    4 tall insurgents

    3 henchmen

    2 purple dubs

    and a cartridge in a bare sheath

On the other hand I didn’t believe in margarine, mayonnaise or anything that rhymes with aise or ine, especially tangerines.

I didn’t believe in leafy vegetables. Leafy.

I’ve never believed in the anonymity of swans and for that you may sue me. 

(Sue, I believe, is available for star analysis at this moment.)

I believe in rashes, how lavish they are when confined to small spaces.

I believe in the elements that make up pet dander and cologne.

I believe in the St. Lucie Causeway, the undertow of sinners.

Synclines and ostracism.

Argonauts and plebian hordes.

David Byrne. Labelle.

I once believed I saw Patti in an elevator in Augusta. She was higher than Godzilla with her hair all done up.

I believed in John Forsythe.

I believed in angels.

I believed in plums.

--Neil de la Flor & Maureen Seaton

kristine snodgrass

terese svoboda