Epilogue by C.J. Miles

I Google how to write a poem. It takes me to an essay on how to shoot yourself in the head. The essay informs me that there is no guarantee that shooting yourself in the head, from any angle or into any part of the head, will guarantee death. Shooting yourself in the heart is more certain. I take notes on the back of a cereal box. I eat everything inside of the cereal box and then call in sick to the job I quit last week. I Mapquest love. The directions inform me to poem a tunnel to your door. I buy a shovel and start digging. It takes so long, it takes six years to finish the tunnel and get to you. You answer the door disguised as yourself, but happier. I follow you around the house. Your bedroom walls are lined with taxidermy storks. Everything smells like a sound I haven’t yet heard before. I kiss your eyebrows one at a time. I undress your hips first. There’s a knock on the door. You redress your hips and answer the door. There’s a man holding a box. Inside the box is another stork, stuffed mid-flight.

C.J. Miles lives in Iowa with his wife. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Forage, Moonglasses Magazine, Beech Street Review, Five 2 One Magazine, and Algebra of Owls, among others. Follow him on Twitter at @cjmilespoet.