Mike James


My Given Name is Mike

I’m making a list of new names for me
I ask strangers for suggestions
I give them my card
It contains my chosen scent and my vital statistics
It asks them to fill in a blank

Almost everyone smiles when they read it
No one has burned a card in front of me
No one assumes I am a phoenix
That the remnants of a burning could make eyeliner
That the name on the blank could be Ash

Mike James lives right outside Nashville, Tennessee. His most recent poetry collections include: Red Dirt Souvenir Shop (Analog Submissions), Journeyman’s Suitcase (Luchador), Parades (Alien Buddha), Jumping Drawbridges in Technicolor (Blue Horse), First-Hand Accounts from Made-Up Places (Stubborn Mule), Crows in the Jukebox (Bottom Dog), My Favorite Houseguest (FutureCycle), and Peddler’s Blues (Main Street Rag.) He currently serves as an associate editor of Unbroken.
 
 
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