Great Kills Review

Winter 2005 – Volume I, issue 2

Corey Messler

Marsha Says

Everyone loves stories involving sex.

I say, “yes, sex, Marsha, is involving.”

It involves too much sometimes, so

that we poor snotty humans,

the best we can do is hold on for dear

life. Everyone loves stories

involving sex or not. And the stories

we tell are all ways of talking

about what we are to each other, stories

rich with imagery and fiery, perilous sex.

Scar Afar

She has a scar,

a little white moon slice,

on her perfect ass.

She sends me a picture

of it. I am so far away

she can barely hear

me breathing hard, barely

feel me kiss that scar.

A Sentimental You-Know-What

The classroom smelled of floor wax

and something else.

The afternoons were long and the

artificial heat was like another clothing.

In the dark, between her russet

jumproping thighs, I could see a glimpse

of white. White like the

first star, white like the snow which was

coming. I didn’t know what

I felt but it was cumbersome. It was a long

slow ride into passion,

and the wide open fields of my education.

About the Author

Corey Mesler is the owner of Burke’s Book Store, in Memphis, Tennessee, one of the country’s oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores. He has published poetry and fiction in numerous journals including Rattle, Pindeldyboz, Quick Fiction, Cranky, Thema, Mars Hill Review, Poet Lore and others. He has also been a book reviewer for The Memphis Commercial Appeal. A short story of his was chosen for the 2002 edition of New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, published by Algonquin Books. Talk, his first novel, appeared in 2002. Nice blurbs from Lee Smith, John Grisham, Robert Olen Butler, Frederick Barthelme, and others. He has a new novel, We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon, due out in December 2005 from Livingston. His latest four poetry chapbooks are Chin-Chin in Eden (2003) and Dark on Purpose (2004),Short Story and Other Short Stories (2006), and The Heart is Open (2006). He also claims to have written, “My Sharona.” Most importantly, he is Toby and Chloe’s dad and Cheryl’s husband.

You can reach Corey at chmesler@earthlink.net.

You can check out his bookstore at www.burkesbooks.com.

“Marsha Says” © 2005 by Corey Messler

“Scar Afar” © 2005 by Corey Messler

“A Sentimental You-Know-What” © 2005 by Corey Messler

*All rights reserved by the author – no work may be reprinted without the express consent of its author.

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