I got a rejection today. I looked at the name of the publication and drew a blank. I called up the submission on Duotrope and had a vague recollection of submitting the three poems. After filing the rejection away, I looked at the poems. I quite like them, especially this one:
Another Experiment Gone Wrong
Are you some kind of duke or baron? the forlorn man
in the tweedy jacket and wearing the sunset asks me.
Surely I don’t radiate royalty in my smacked-down
outfit and my hair twisting and shouting like a bad
dance move, my eyeballs gyrating independently
of each other, my tongue confessing crimes at break-
neck speed, my curlicue tail suddenly forked and red
just as the local authorities realize I’ve broken loose.
No, good sir, I’m just an another experiment gone wrong,
I say and lope toward the sinister house on the hill.