Gee whiz, All-American boy.
Blue-eyed crystal
Toothpaste grin
Bleached Chiclet teeth
Hair, golden waves of grain.
Cover of Boy’s Life:
“Explore Your Future!”
Cover of Sports Illustrated:
“Kid Dynamite: Mike Tyson, the Next Great
Heavyweight—and He’s Only 19!”
Cover of GQ: “Sean Connery
On Politics & Power”
Oh you, Cover boy,
Strike a pose.
Lantern-jawed
Testosterone
Long-limbed
Strike a pose
Barrel-chested
Nipples like rosy pennies.
Wonder Bread
PBR
AXE
Old Spice.
High school hero:
Shoulder pads
Chewing gum,
Speedos, jock straps
Stanford Cardinals bleed.
Mama spit-cleans
Daddy grills
Red Solo cups
Steaks medium-well
Never bleeding
—Since those 10 minutes of action,
meat hasn’t tasted the same—
Summer-browned skin
Docks, cattails, skimming bare feet
Skipping smooth stones
—Since those 10 minutes of action,
his stroke has slackened—
Starting block
Little crimson briefs
Hot-blooded competition.
The Dane saw our All-American
behind a dumpster, called, and
vomited on the ground.
J.E. Macy grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City, and since graduating high school in 2009 has lived quite nomadically. She left Pittsburg State University with a degree in English, gallivanted across Europe, returned home, and is currently pursuing a Master’s in English with an Emphasis in Creative Writing at her alma mater.
Guest editor Laura Lee Washburn is the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize). Her poetry has appeared in such journals as The New Verse News, Cavalier Literary Couture, Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, Red Rock Review, and Valparaiso Review. Born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, she has also lived and worked in Arizona and in Missouri. She is married to the writer Roland Sodowsky and is one of the founders and the Co-President of the Board of SEK Women Helping Women.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 