[ToC]

 

Peter Mishler

THE HYPOCHONDRIAC'S WISHBONE

The schoolchildren sway on the swings like black bells tolling back and forth announcing that the town is sick. A girl ties a piece of kite string to the dead crow's leg and the twins practice fencing with a pair of broken antlers. The rest stops sell the same refrigerator magnet as one town over: the skinny dwarf pine. Rawboned horses wade onto the interstate. I scratch a line into the side of my house to see how far it will sink. The ambulances called do not arrive to find the black pear that is growing on my heart. Something is growing on the side of your heart. With the wish I saved from a broken swallow's bone, I beg for two more hands to search for lumps.

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I highly recommend The Horse Has Six Legs: An Anthology of Serbian Poetry and the forthcoming book from Sheep Meadow Press by Pakistani poet Raza Ali Hasan.