corey mesler

Our Shortened Days


The recent quake in Chile
may have skewed the entire planet’s
axis, shortening our days.
I did not make this up. A NASA
scientist said it today.
And it seems just to me. No flood
this time, just the gradual
reduction of time, just the shaving
off of a few minutes here and there.
I already feel it. I do. So I am
writing as fast as I can. I am reading
as fast as I can. And you, my
family, I pledge to love you exceptionally
hard in these coming days, brief
as dew drops engilt of the provisional sun.



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), a full length poetry collection, Some Identity Problems (2008), and a book of short stories, Listen: 29 Short Conversations (2009). He also has two novels released simultaneously, March 31, 2010: The Ballad of the Two Tom Mores (Bronx River Press) and Following Richard Brautigan (Livingston Press). He has also published a dozen chapbooks of both poetry and prose. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize numerous times, and two of his poems have been chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. He also claims to have written, “Ebony and Ivory.” 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.