Shelle M. Barton

While cooking I take a wrong step and fist the egg in my hand and break it. Hold shells like evidence, away from the body. Yolk eddies in my palm where heart and life lines fold into skin hollows, syrups past the pinkie, drips onto linoleum-- spreads a yellow disk over dog hair and coffee grounds. Let the meat thaw, stove fan whir. Watch feast candles melt out. Fix on wax, fix on pig rump and corn aging on the counter. Will the heart to stop its back beat mantra: the sweat on my lip will dry, the sweat on my lip will dry. Every good body does fine, every good boy does fine. Vitamin B promotes moral growth. Tu, Vous, Voulais. The less the road the more the difference. That plant. In the window, Aloe Vera. No. Mother-in-law's tongue. Listen. The traffic. Count. How many curses rise above the machine hum. Velocity equals rate times time. Here to the sink - six seconds. No. Ten. Two seconds to turn the tap. Five seconds to scream. Eight to get religion. Ten to find the phone. Is the oven on? Smell that broil. Smoke. It rises. How long to drop to my belly and writhe to the door? Move. No. Calculate. Eight percent on a hundred year loan. Country people. Lend me. How long does it take to bleed to death, how stainless is steel after it is buried in the curve of toes?

Shelle M. Barton is in her second to last semester at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, working toward a degree in English and Creative Writing. She's the editor of the student literary magazine at UALR, Equinox. She is also an editor's assistant and web master for the literary magazine Crazyhorse. Shelle lives in a big studio with her best friend, a dog and a few cats. Next year, she'll spend a year living in rural Arkansas where she'll write in preparation for graduate school and do a lot of gardening.