Chad Parenteau
Clean Break
Someone challenge me
to survive,
head bent over toilet,
tongue inside.
Watch me
make love
to store cameras
with my mask on,
brandish two-fisted
protection
while I fondle
French loaves,
party in my closet
like it’s 1918,
live to tell
my boring story.
—Submitted on 04/23/2020
Chad Parenteau is the author of Patron Emeritus (FootHills Publishing, 2013). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tell-Tale Inklings, Queen Mob’s Tea House, The Skinny Poetry Journal, Ibbetson Street, Molecule, and Résonance. He serves as associate editor of Oddball Magazine and hosts the venerable Stone Soup Poetry series in Boston. His second full-length collection, The Collapsed Bookshelf, is forthcoming.
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