Don’t Get the Wrong Idea

by Ace Boggess

Gabriela Fechet

Snowing again. Today, we enter our third week of uncertainty. A herd of deer slide-steps down the hillock of our yard, five Gene Kellys dancing, not in rain, not singing. How do they keep hoofing it without falling? I walk outside, & cold fluff kisses my ears, caresses my neck. I flinch as if having made slightest contact easing past a stranger in the doorway: disconcerted & delighted, keeping that sensation private. Quiet? Quite. Exhale.

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Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy. His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes, watches Criterion films, and tries to stay out of trouble. His forthcoming books include poetry collections, My Pandemic / Gratitude List from Mōtus Audāx Press and Tell Us How to Live from Fernwood Press, and his first short-story collection, Always One Mistake, from Running Wild Press.