by Harry Calhoun

Kissing, you don’t want the remnants of beard
to graze your face if I don’t shave.
But I don’t like to shave every day.

So an eighth-inch of stubble
becomes an issue that grates
on both of us. And the stubble, the grating,

if that were the worst of it, would not
be so bad. There must be a way to start talking,
to come closer than that last irritating

eighth of an inch

Harry Calhoun’s articles, literary essays, book reviews and poems have been published in magazines including Writer’s Digest and The National Enquirer. Recently, his online chapbook Dogwalking Poems and his trade paperback, I Knew Bukowski Like You Knew a Rare Leaf, were published. The latter is now available from Trace Publications and on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other online booksellers. He has had recent publications in Chiron Review, Still Crazy, SNReview, Orange Room Review, Bird’s Eye Review, Abbey, Monongahela Review and many others. Recently, he was one of 12 poets invited to Literary Mary’s anthology, Outstanding Men of the Small Press.