Matt Quinn

talk show

I don’t know why I have been invited on to this talk show. I’ve spent the past decade stuck to the underside of a windowsill and in all that time have collected no anecdotes. My agent calls. Tell them about the book you have coming out, she says. I do not have a book coming out, or an agent, but she is very insistent. The host opens with questions about the new book. I speak instead about windowsills, but he does not stop asking. Eventually I tell him I don’t have a book coming out. He laughs. He leans forward and pulls up my shirt, and there it is: a corner of it just starting to emerge from a slit in my ribcage. Looks like a hardback, he says, congratulating me. The audience goes wild.

dragons

Listen, says the Komodo dragon, let me be your dragon. Those fire-breathing dragons are too energetic for you, and fire is terribly painful. I could be your friend. You know how you long for company. Let me graze my teeth just once across your leg. The warmth will spread through you like an eiderdown wrapped around your whole body, and you know how much you value comfort. Let me follow you around as you grow drowsy. I will flicker my tongue affectionately over your face each time you lay down to rest. It may even feel like love.

Wait, I say, don’t I know you from somewhere? Aren’t you that dragon that’s always following me around? Ah yes, says the Komodo dragon, a little embarrassed, I’m afraid it may already have started.

Matt Quinn lives in Brighton, England, where he takes frequent rests. His poems have been published by Sugar House Review, Rattle, The Morning Star, The North, elsewhere and HAD, among others.