Guidelines



Submission Guidelines: Send unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Wednesday, May 02, 2018

LAWYERING

by Alejandro Escudé





There’s no free association on the mood-bus.
The mind of the President’s lawyer and his team
of modules; so that, you have a blank canvas
awakened at birth to reveal the edgings of industry.
He says, “I hope he’s doing alright.” The word
“alright” refers to business. It’s not Jesus dying
on the splintered cross, or Peter observing
the feet of his followers. I see a guitar hanging,
Mussolini, his mistress, Italians spitting words
like spit and spit like words over their corpses.
I dated a girl once I met on a website, beautiful
and dumb. She had one phrase she’d text
over and over again: “Are you serious?”

That was it. “Are you serious?” I wasn’t serious.
The ground gave way, or the server, and I saw
she was a myriad of connections. Her system
opened before me and she posed on a shell,
beckoning with her infinite curls. And he was
there to defend me, the businessman-lawyer,
extending the trial. My voice trilling with anger.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.