Tony Mancus

limping dog with its | mile
wires stretch across a state   their measurement

 

can with
a necktie in

red (the can)
striped (the tie—       blue/black
blue/black)

 

 

 

 

 

boy on a string being carried
across the crosswalk by balloon
(shape of balloon dawned from memory)
(drawn with money)

a number of people in silhouette at the train stop

the sun invisible behind them
their bright shapes move
until the train covers them

 

girl walk/boy walk

difference measured
at the shoulder
at the hip and

 

 

 

 

 

sew hemlock and swagger
swatches of stand alone—     a hair for the mice

to haggle over
together

 

Dear cosmopolis:     a note for doctor’s
excuse—the new train cars
need us
(ride peaceably)

 

a garden
of people sent
to seed

 

 

 

 

 

fantastic neighbor dancing—guy talks
shit with his shirt half-
buttoned       even
winter

 

the crisp sibyl

the cracking sky

blue over all

 

 

 

our feet—hatted
with shadow a spectacle
one block over

 

a strike and goodbye

my sign you’re dancing

 

you spray an ocean sized salt
the neighbors above and below us
belted with their bones and leaved

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Tony Mancus is the author of a handful of chapbooks, most recently City Country (winner of the Seattle Review chapbook award). In 2008, he co-founded Flying Guillotine Press with Sommer Browning, they make small books. Also, with Meg Ronan he curates In Your Ear, a reading series in DC. He currently works as an instructional designer and lives with his wife Shannon and three yappy cats in Arlington, VA.