My Self and Me

I take my self out for a walk.
He balks at every crack.
We hide his blisters with our
discreet machinery.
The day is as long as the tale
we told about our wind-chapped
youth. The book turns
itself in. My self looks around
and declares the world
a barmy experiment. He says
the sky is his for the rearranging.
He says I am no longer necessary.



Chloe at Three

Little fingers
slick with jam

I take them into my
bear-sized paw

and wonder at
how something so

delicate can tear such
a large hole in me.


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 Rattle, Pindeldyboz, Quick Fiction, Cranky, Thema, Mars Hill Review, Poet Lore and others. He has also been a book reviewer for The Memphis Commercial Appeal. A short story of his was chosen for the 2002 edition of New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, published by Algonquin Books. Talk, his first novel, appeared in 2002. Nice blurbs from Lee Smith, John Grisham, Robert Olen Butler, Frederick Barthelme, and others. He has a new novel, We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon, just out from Livingston. He has 5 chapbooks due out in 2006. He also claims to have written, “Bennie and the Jets.” Most importantly, he is Toby and Chloe’s dad and Cheryl’s husband.