This selection is included in NonBinary Review Issue #3, available here.

After you left, I peeled the clockwork
heart from my sleeve with a worn-
down paring knife and fused it

to the spotted sole of my shoe.
Now I limp around like a three-
legged dog, like a tipped

bottle of gin. I grin like a muzzled
shotgun locked behind glass, waiting
for a child to lift the latch, take me down.

Emily Rose Cole is a poet, folksinger, and MFA candidate in poetry at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Her debut solo album, “I Wanna Know,” was released in May of 2012. She really digs this issue, because she's currently working on a book-length collection based on the Wizard of Oz.