jay robinson

Ashland Faculty

FRAGMENTS FROM CHARM SCHOOL

Everything made more sense when wearing 3D glasses, fuck-me pumps.

Her emotions in a series of titles: Still Life with Benadryl, Landscape in the Style of
Someone Else’s Landscape, Untitled #12.

That includes you, your Majesty.

When the apocalypse didn’t materialize, she listened to Nine Inch Nails again.

No, he said, that’s the story of my life.

Like he was a gift I had already unwrapped, a tree with one too many ornaments.

And the credits rolled…

Somebody topped off her coffee when she wasn’t looking.

Maybe she’d clocked in at the wrong Nativity Scene.

If she could travel back in time, she’d make sure the slipper wouldn’t fit.

Like a partially frozen lake, the difficulty of knowing which part was which.

The moral to the story was somewhere in the keys of a broken piano.

Every day an ugly sweater party I’m attending.

The temptation to wear her swaddling clothes hovered in the air.

Was there really a point to a drum solo?

JAY ROBINSON IS THE CO-AUTHOR OF THE CZAR. HE TEACHES AT ASHLAND UNIVERSITY AND THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON. POETRY AND PROSE HAS APPEARED IN 32 POEMS, BLACK FORK REVIEW, THE LAUREL REVIEW, POETRY, WHISKEY ISLAND, AMONG OTHERS.