What Rough Beast | Covid-19 Edition | 06 14 20 | Chad Parenteau

Chad Parenteau
Clean Break

Someone challenge me
to survive,

head bent over toilet,
tongue inside.

Watch me
make love

to store cameras
with my mask on,

brandish two-fisted
protection

while I fondle
French loaves,

party in my closet
like it’s 1918,

live to tell
my boring story.

—Submitted on 04/23/2020

Chad Parenteau is the author of Patron Emeritus (FootHills Publishing, 2013). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tell-Tale InklingsQueen Mob’s Tea HouseThe Skinny Poetry JournalIbbetson StreetMolecule, and Résonance. He serves as associate editor of Oddball Magazine and hosts the venerable Stone Soup Poetry series in Boston. His second full-length collection, The Collapsed Bookshelf, is forthcoming.

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