corey mesler

show some history


The roadhouses were all dark.
The travelers, left
to their own devices, chose accident
as their default function.
The moon, never that trustworthy
to begin with, disappeared.
The woman with me reached out
and touched me like an abyss.
She said, come over here and take
a piece of me. I told her,
show some history. I am weakened
by the emotions I never
used. I am drifting, drifting, a man
made of fluttering, vanishing skills.


COREY MESLER has published in numerous journals and anthologies. He has published two novels, Talk: A Novel in Dialogue (2002) and We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon (2006). His first full length poetry collection, Some Identity Problems (2008), is out from Foothills Publishing and his book of short stories, Listen: 29 Short Conversations, appeared in March 2009. He also has two novels set to be published in the next year, The Ballad of the Two Tom Mores (Bronx River Press, 2009) and Following Richard Brautigan (Livingston Press, 2010). He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize numerous times, and one of his poems was chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. He has two children, Toby, (1988), and Chloe, (1995). With his wife, he runs Burke’s Book Store, one of the country’s oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores. He can be found at www.coreymesler.com.