In Monopoly I would play the thimble, she the top hat. Take me for all I have. Take me to jail. In the world of the blind, one stitch is impossible. Every time a butterfly net is sewn an angel gets trapped, suffocates in the netting, drops to the stones, festers. Mark my words with a bobbin. Stitch a line across my mouth if you think I will unravel all the skein that led you to me.

Ben Cartwright’s The Meanest Things Pick Clean was a finalist in the Floating Bridge Press chapbook competition and was published in 2017.  His work has appeared in The Pinch, DIAGRAM, West Branch,Seneca Review, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection, After Our Departure, was chosen by Nance Van Winckel as the winner of the Powder Horn Prize and was published by Sage Hill Press in 2016. Ben toured the Pacific Northwest in the summer of 2017 with the writers Leyna Krow, Tim Greenup, and Ellen Welcker as part of the Sinkhole Book Tour. He lives in Spokane, where he teaches at Spokane Falls Community College. He can be found online at benjamindcartwright.com.

Photo by Ethan Sykes.