DOWN WITH PRESCRIPTION, UP WITH DESCRIPTION!
︎︎︎ Will McCollum
︎ Jan 20, 2023
Amphetamine, after waking, the hard-boiled egg yolk.
Mood-stabilizer, after lunch, the bisected muscadine.
Anti-psychotic, after dinner, the cross section of a pickle.
Anti-depressant, before sleeping, the sea-salted almond.
The psychopharmaceutical industry means birdwatching:
birdsong—sounding like sirens these days. Birdcall—
sounding like hoarse-throated analog squawks these days.
Red still means code red: cardinal, cardinal, cardinal.
Phone chargers are to be purchased at Love’s and Pilot.
Bar codes are to be cut up and thrown in the nearest trash receptacle.
This is Jubilee: mimesis, color-coding, microeconomics.
Snack section sorcery. We’re all agents now: let’s get cryptic.
Light dances at the bottom of the pool on this blessed spring
Saturday. Foolhardy stomping of feet: left foot forward first.
Mood-stabilizer, after lunch, the bisected muscadine.
Anti-psychotic, after dinner, the cross section of a pickle.
Anti-depressant, before sleeping, the sea-salted almond.
The psychopharmaceutical industry means birdwatching:
birdsong—sounding like sirens these days. Birdcall—
sounding like hoarse-throated analog squawks these days.
Red still means code red: cardinal, cardinal, cardinal.
Phone chargers are to be purchased at Love’s and Pilot.
Bar codes are to be cut up and thrown in the nearest trash receptacle.
This is Jubilee: mimesis, color-coding, microeconomics.
Snack section sorcery. We’re all agents now: let’s get cryptic.
Light dances at the bottom of the pool on this blessed spring
Saturday. Foolhardy stomping of feet: left foot forward first.
Will McCollum is a PhD student in anthropology/archaeology at the University of Chicago, but he lives in his hometown, Birmingham, Alabama, where he conducts industrial archaeological fieldwork and might eventually write a dissertation. His poetry has been published by Stone of Madness Press, Litbreak Magazine, The Gravity of the Thing, Sobotka Literary Magazine, and is forthcoming in Apocalypse Confidential.