Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday

Fibonacci sequence

In Smoker’s Paradise, all love poems
are bad. Sun chafes against rocks. Each pocket
spills train tickets. Seduction by water
if you ignore the leering man (and wife).
My lover’s busy sleeping in foxholes.
I get spanked by liquid plumage to quell
annoyance. Most of swimming is making
sure straight couples don’t smash their heads and die.
Anything beautiful can turn into
a cautionary tale, any second.
My dream was to be a hymnal writer.
Instead, I just slip, hollering breaststroke.
The fattest hen warms seven empty eggs
at a time. Wet me with a nursery rhyme.

L Scully is a living writer.

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx