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Nancy Carol Moody

__________

Blue Wheelchair

Come, Blue Chair.
Come like a dream, a month’s second moon,
water-wrapped planet, September’s stone.
Cornflowers and summer-
time berries and sky the way
we were promised it would always be.
Come, Blue Chair.
Who cares what you’re made of
or what it is you really are—
four rickety wheels or rusty running blades
or the slickest oil to rear and slide away
backwards on.
Just come, Blue Chair,
you beeless hive,
workbench-resting hammer, pole-
hoisted flag waiting for wind.
Blue Chair, come. Quit
your stasis.
Come wrapped in your blue
like the legendary ox, shoes of suede,
a bird of unmitigated happiness.
Come, Blue Chair.
Come get us
the holy hell out of here.

__________

Piñata
            a Mad Lib haibun (with key)

The turned-around _______ with blindfold & bat & party hat
                                                              noun
swings at a(n) ____________ pig __________ on a rope
                                               adjective                          verb
which hangs from a tree limb directly in front _________ her.
                                                                                                                                       preposition
Or is it behind? To this side ________ that? Kids bellow
                                                                              conjunction
& whoop from a precarious distance, high ________ glee
                                                                                                                           preposition
yet dodging personal catastrophe. The girl strikes again
at what she thinks is there. The wood in her hands finds
nothing but air, sends her spinning wildly into her own
____________. She loses her footing, _________ & reels,
         noun                                                                                       verb
stabbing __________ at sky at earth at everything between.
                                adverb
A cartoon dust cloud swirls up from her feet, and the partiers
go crazy. Such wild fun—beating a _________ to smithereens
                                                                                                           noun
to scatter whatever ____________ might be sparkling within.
                                                                      noun

                      velocity on wheels—
                      creature of sweetness or papier-mâché
                                                                                                            girl dangling blindly

__________

Nancy Carol Moody is the author of the collections The House of Nobody Home and Photograph with Girls, as well as a chapbook, Mermaid. Her work has appeared in The Southern Review, Rattle, and Tampa Review. Nancy also constructs mixed-media collages, the layering of various elements not so different from the way she builds her poems. She wouldn’t mind living on a train, but is content at home in Eugene, Oregon with her partner and more than a thousand pens. Find Nancy online at www.nancycarolmoody.com.

__________

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