​Collin Callahan    Tallahassee        (Kate Sweeney)
Dear Corporation


Richard and I knife the moonrocks
into separate piles
on a mattress hidden in the skimp forest outline
of an industrial park.
They crackle like rat skulls
in the blades of a lawnmower.
Richard squiggles warmblood
horses on a napkin
as I rock back and forth like a machine
full of wet clothes.
Moths powder the handrails of gaunt stairwells.
This light has the quality
of a midwestern hospital.
Nitrous canisters lie about.
I think about submarine warfare
and those balloons in the dead girl’s backyard.
The electrical plant is pink thunder.
I tuck the aluminum foil into my breast pocket
like a beautiful child.

originally published in Bat City Review where it was featured as the winner of the 2021 Bat City Review Editor's Prize in Poetry
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