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Winter 2008
Dean Brink
Alan Catlin
Jim Doss
Darrell Epp
Taylor Graham
Ken Gurney
Michelle Lerner
Michele Lesko
Lynn Lifshin
M
Corey Mesler
Mitchell Metz
Bryan Mitschell
Maurice Oliver
Patty Paine
Jayne Pupek
Nic Sebastian
Shawn Sorensen
Lynn Strongin
Christy Tomecek
David Jordan
Richard Rippon
Jack Swenson
Doug Ramspeck
David Jordan
Micki Myers
Teresa White
Jeff Calhoun
Patricia Gomes
Jennifer VanBuren
Jai Britton
Patrick Carrington
Alex Nodopaka
Order "Trim" Mannequin Envy's first print anthology
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Bryan Mitschell
Winter 2008
Morning Ritual
Should I keep the Charmin rooked a silo sideways
on my bathroom’s boom box, my toothbrush stands
nicely missled in the middle. This is what I do.
Should I flick my rinsed fingers toward the sink drain –
all abracadabra-like – some wet will rebel into my cotton shirt.
Also as well into the um, toilet bowl where a clear pond
responds like shuddering vanilla gelatin.
Should I hold the Listerine up to the open window I see
an aquarial orbiter ant that crept under the cap I guess last night.
Suddenly it’s too early for absinthe or tequila and way
too late for any crazy alien hybrid thereof. But I fly it around,
make sci-fi sounds and land it on any helipad of porcelain.
Should I resign myself to these routine auroras.
No, I’m asking this time. I have one white towel.
It snoozes over the shower. Curtain. Rod. Relentless with this
cologne memory – a permanence of Lever 2000.
I imagine it’s how polar bears smell nuzzling one’s shoulder;
urging to answer that everything’s going to be
okay. This is what I do.
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Bryan Mitschell is currently a graduate student at the University of Central Oklahoma and is an active host and proponent to the open mic poetry and spoken word scene of the Oklahoma City area. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Plainsongs, Poetry Midwest, Soul Fountain and Wavelength.
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