Between You and Me and Ice Alley
by Tyler Barton
—
Call me creepy.
Dad does.
He says to me daily: “Nolan if you do not stop peeping out that forsaken window I will move your bed to the other side of the house.” Eavesdropping he calls it—calls me an eavesdropper. But, like, if the people down there in the alley wake me up every morning even before Dad is up boiling water for coffee or tying and retying his tie, how am I to blame? I’m a light sleeper and you can’t change that.
Dare I Eat A Peach?
by Tyler Barton
—
Could I touch toes?
Did the little electric jumper
that sprang from your broken earbud
hop on my knee
when they touched
beneath the coffee shop’s table?
Can I give it back to you?
Horizontally, a mental blocker
had taken over.
I needed to lean in closer,
but without embarrassed smiling.
Without red faces.
Sober, surefooted
Grown-up embraces.
When are you grown up?
How do you know?
Hybrid cursive words.
