Canonical Hour

I sit with an inked friend in the laundromat,
him in his skivvies reading Philip Whalen,
me with a Dixie cup and a bottle of Allt-A-Bhainne,
watching an ouroboros of jeans and shirts.
Gestures mad with love—washing, whisky, poems.









Michael Dwayne Smith lives near a Mojave Desert ghost town with his family and rescued animals. His most recent book is Roadside Epiphanies (Cholla Needles Press 2017). His work haunts many literary houses, including The Cortland Review, New World Writing, Gravel, Word Riot, and Blue Fifth Review, and it has been widely anthologized. When not writing or teaching, he is editor of Mojave River Press & Review.