Vol. 2, No. 3: The Goal Line Extends Through Infinity photo

The Suburbs Are a Relatively New InventionKimberly Ann Southwick

if you think about it or have ever travelled anywhere but here

& I think we forget that. I’m not saying capitalism isn’t better

 

than feudalism or absolute monarchy, but that it’s all the same

beast this time dressed in granny’s pajamas & my, your teeth

 

look so sharp. I’m saying, don’t come at me for my bloodsport.

The college where I teach, its mascot is named for a fighting chicken

 

& no one even blinks. Isn’t that what college football is,

I say to no one, especially not myself. I used to argue

 

if you had a problem with Vick,

then you had a problem with the American Justice System.

 

I don’t argue that anymore. I also don’t have to.

Let’s instead discuss Jalen Hurts & his supposed “Accuracy Issues—”

 

those were air-quotes. Just look at his arms. Or don’t.  Leave them

for me alone to look at. My house here sits far from the road.

 

My Mom calls where I live a “rural area,” but it’s not. I just have room.

 

I scream, & the neighbors can’t hear me, GET HIM! GET HIM! at the TV,

and then my not yet three-year-old daughter screams, GET HIM! GET HIM GET HIM GET HIM.

 

Then, RUN.

Kimberly Ann Southwick is a poet and Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at Jacksonville State University in Alabama. Her first full-length poetry collection, Orchid Alpha, will appear this spring from Trembling Pillow Press. She is the founder and editor in chief of the print literary-arts journal, Gigantic Sequins, which has been in print since 2009. Kimberly earned her PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2020. She is originally from South Jersey. Follow her on twitter @kimannjosouth