heroes

These are poems about unlikely heroes and anti-heroes ...

Unlikely Mike
by Michael R. Burch

I married someone else’s fantasy;
she admired me despite my mutilations.

I loved her for her heart’s sake, and for mine.
I hid my face and changed its connotations.

And in the dark I danced—slight, Chaplinesque—
a metaphor myself. How could they know,

the undiscerning ones, that in the glow
of spotlights, sometimes love becomes burlesque?

Disfigured to my soul, I could not lose
or choose or name myself; I came to be

"Salat Days” is a poem I wrote about a barely edible weed called — take your pick — pokeweed, poke salad, poke sallet and poke salat. The poem “Salat Days” is followed by a prose version that might be called a short story, a personal essay or flash fiction or micro fiction.

Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch

Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.