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FOUR WAY REVIEW

Julie Brooks Barbour is the author of Small Chimes (2014) and two chapbooks: Earth Lust (forthcoming in 2014) and Come To Me and Drink (2012). Her poems have appeared in Waccamaw, diode, storySouth, Prime Number Magazine, The Rumpus, The Lindenwood Review, Midwestern Gothic, Blue Lyra Review, and Verse Daily. She is co-editor of the journal Border Crossing and an Associate Poetry Editor at Connotation Press: An Online Artifact. She teaches composition and creative writing at Lake Superior State University.

The Smallest Man by Julie Brooks Barbour

Tuesday, 28 October 2014 by Julie Brooks Barbour

creeps across the lines in my palm. He erects a house
with a tree in the front yard and a dog running the length
of the lawn. Yesterday he fashioned a weapon
from sharpened sticks and twine to protect what he owns,
though I hold no one else and there’s no room for expansion.
Once I thought an itchy palm foretold a windfall
but now it’s him mowing the lawn or taking the dog for a walk.
Sometimes I whisper secrets and he thinks it’s the wind
and zips his jacket, tucks his head down. Friends ask to see
my hand and wonder at the world I’ve created, but it’s really
what someone else created when I relinquished control.

 

 

 

Issue 6 Contents                                      NEXT: Persistent Design by Nate Pritts

Four Way ReviewJulie Brooks BarbourSmallest Man
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  • Published in Issue 6, Poetry
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