$8.00
by Flower Conroy
In Flower Conroy’s debut collection of poems, she writes, “some babies are relieved to be born, freed from their claustrophobic sleeping bags,” heralding the Bildungsroman in verse this book will be. Told with pith, wit, and full of desire and heat, these poems seek to understand and forgive. In the wildly self-aware poem, “EVELYN’S BEDROOM WHILE EVELYN WATCHED TV & ATE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH ICE CREAM OUT OF THE CONTAINER,” Conroy’s speaker says, “Upset? I wasn’t upset. I was hysterical. /Inconsolable. Overly emotional. Wrecked. //Then I got over it,” and when in the final poem, “Only Idiots Get Tattoos,” she writes, “My favorite tattoo’s/ the one on the back of my neck in memory of my father’s/ passing: an upturned horseshoe, carried up, by wings” we know how hard won, how complex the journey has been, and, too, that the next leg of the poet’s journey has only just begun. Conroy’s searing, musically charged poems, dirty, hopeful, and sometimes cuttingly funny, will please and illumine with singular muscularity and a dash of black mascara.
—Laura McCullough
Flower Conroy is a poet who relishes with equal ferocity the "cheese grater hood" of the blasted ceiling overhead and the bent light of the sky beyond it. She writes with a sly and angular directness, holding up to our startled scrutiny objects suddenly aglow with pain, with rash choices, with small, unforgettable and brilliantly torqued stories. In poem after poem, with fearless, whacked power and visceral clarity, she explores and celebrates facets of reality most of us fail to notice.
—Catherine Doty
Flower Conroy's poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals including Serving House Journal, BlazeVox, Saw Palm, American Literary Review, Psychic Meatloaf, Cliterature, and others. She is currently an MFA student at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She is an only child and a Pisces and her favorite color is green. Originally from New Jersey, she now lives in Key West, FL.
by Flower Conroy
Apple Core of My Father's Eye
At birth: some babies are relieved to be born,
freed from their claustrophobic sleeping bags.
Some resemble reptiles or snowmen or plucked
poultry waiting to be buttered & salted.
Some drool old fools’ gummy smiles
tickled by their own gaseous trampolines.
Other newborns automatically mourn
their ejection & only want to worm back-
wards into their snail shell corridors,
into that dark cardinal slime.
When I was born I summoned with me evening
& hail: interrupted a Friday night poker game
& dinner of Cornish hen. Storm relieved it-
self. In the nursery, I peered into the barrel
of the camera—into the glare of bent light
on the lens like a sliver of silver—into that
other’s unseen eye on the far side of the glass
frame. I can’t remember what shucked
thought germinated just then—you translated
my name from girl—when piercing flash
entered me—bullet—or crossbow’s arrow.
You'd Be Surprised How Fast a Flying Pig Can Fly
My father rode a pterodactyl
& shot the last flying pig.
In his presence, quarters
would fall from my ears.
With a ‘poose’ he’d ill-
uminate the interior car
light; another ‘poose’
& it’d go dark. ‘Poose’ light;
‘poose’ dark. I think he
dwelled in dark. Even sheltered
in the snow-lit Pine Barrens,
a gun in his lap, dark
cocooned him. Would you
call it tortured? Stormy
nights our little family’d
drive onto the sand & watch
lightning impale ocean.
Soundtrack of thunder.
Shattering waves, radio
hollering, Have you ever seen
the rain, coming down?
Like a storm of glass. Once, while
hunting, my father spied with
his good blue eye, the Jersey
Devil skulking around
like a giant deer
& fired. The Devil
looked dead
at him before returning
into the heart
of the woods, its black veins,
its shadowed chambers, its
evergreen circulatory system.
When dusk collapsed
he made his way back
to the cabin. When he spoke
about what really happened
out there, he spoke about
grazing the Jersey Devil
with a silver bullet. Fear-
less. He rode a pterodactyl
into the side of a used car
lot, blinded by sun.
The last flying pig? That shot
was a shot of pure luck.
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