The Chimaera: Issue 2, January 2008

Corey Mesler

Sometimes the Medicine Works
and Sometimes There’s the Other Thing

I take a pill to stop thinking about
your inner thighs. I stop
thinking about your inner thighs.
Now, the letters you wrote me, so
many years ago they are
practically another language, all stand
up single file and escape my
memory. I take another pill to stop
thinking about your words, how they
tempted me to thinking about
your inner thighs. This time the pill
comes back up. Its magic
is almost gone now, like language itself.

Corey Mesler has published in numerous journals and anthologies. His novel, Talk: A Novel in Dialogue, was released in 2002. His second novel, We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon, came out in January 2006. He has also published numerous chapbooks. He has been nominated for a Pushcart numerous times, and one of his poems was chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. With his wife, he runs Burke’s Book Store in Memphis TN. He can be found at http://www.coreymesler.com.