French Resistance, without any French

The raccoons lived in the back shed
like a family of nocturnal lawn mowers.
The backyard just the front yard
that no one sees.
A mother teaching her young.
Raiding the vegetable patch
and the grape vines by the side window.
Often hanging upside down.
Our old Portuguese landlord always cursing their presence
when they got into the garbage bins,
but leaving a little something extra for them
to find on the back window sill
when his angry wife was
not around.

Knuckle White

Playtime is over.
The games are gone forever.
The box top has eaten the syntax.
Wild argan oils in sturdy glass beakers.
We are in too deep now.
Something follows something else.
Shadows large as leopards leap rapturous
in spotted trees.

Why Simple Hands through Hair Are Never Spawning Salmon Up River

I am jaw line,
I am chew toy,
I am a sea serpent
without sea.

I am dirt poor,
I am bone sore,
I am a dirt road
without light.

I am half old,
twice the cuckold.
What are you?

I am dilating,
sock hop gyrating,
I am pampering pillows
into proper softness.

I am righting,
I am carpet flea biting,
no dentist will
touch me.

You can frisk me:
taste, fondle, kiss me
without fanfare.
Where are you?

Sit for pictures,
snapping camera,
I am a suitcase
that never closes
on anything

All that travel,
towers of Babel,
How are you?

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Bourgeon, TheSongIs.., Cultural Weekly, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

Image: Moonriri, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons