My hands are so small, just developed,
finger bones grown solid,
but they’re the pinkest hands I’ve ever seen.
This place is the greatest.
It’s warm, cozy, really lovely.
I’m not sure where I am,
but my people are looking into it.
I don’t want to leave. Why
would anyone want to ditch this?
I’ve got the greatest living arrangement,
ask anyone. So comfy
I sleep almost constantly.
It’s the best womb
(I’m calling it a womb, trademark).
That wall better hold me in,
cradle my soft skin.
It holds up to my kicks,
and I kick hard, let me tell you.
Back in the day, we kicked
more asses for much less.
Try to take me out of here,
I dare you.
As far as staying in this place,
I’m a genius. I know more than you do.
I can’t move, really,
I’m all scrunched up here,
but just try me.
Just try me, snowflakes.
Cody Shrum is an MFA candidate at the University of Missouri-Kansas City with a fiction emphasis. Cody’s fiction and poetry have appeared in such journals as Five on the Fifth, Rust + Moth, Harbor Review, and Kansas Time + Place, as well as the anthology, Kansas Time + Place: An Anthology of Heartland Poetry. He teaches Discourse at UMKC and is finishing his fiction Master’s Thesis.
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 TheNewVerse.News, Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, and Valparaiso Review. Harbor Review’s microchap prize is named in her honor.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 
Loved it!
Good one, Cody!