For This to Work, You’ll Have to Know What I Mean By Warm Fuzzy Feeling

Crow Jonah Norlander

Asleep in a room full of ripe fruit in hopes all the methane will ready me quicker.

Wake up face down, arms crossed overhead, unable to feel them. Crane a few inches and twist my torso to dangle and drag them out from underneath. Wrist twists and elbow bends the wrong way. Turn on to my back.

The coffee machine starts itself, but the hefty sizzle of rain stifles the waking smell from reaching my room where I’ve already silenced half an hour’s worth of backup alarms set in five-minute intervals.

Slowed by a hip lope. Sacroiliac sacrum. The specialist calls it “S.I.”

“Don’t apologize for poking me in the butt, you’re my doctor.”

Slit. A verb after the noun it makes.