Matt Coonan is a third-grade teacher on Long Island (not in Long Island). His students surprise and inspire him every day. He gets most of his writing done during the summer and holiday breaks.

says I want to be a farmer, then jams
a carrot slice in his mouth’s vicinity. My brother
wakes to drain a lake of booze. Franklin follows
the sound of swelling pipes, a polyester dog
dangled by its sky-blue paw, other hand parting
the dark like corn stalks. The bathroom door—
a solar eclipse that harbors my brother. If an
illness earns enough credit, it earns us entirely.
We become its fruition, its childhood dream
with legs. Franklin grows in margins of light.
I want to be the whittled spine of his shadow,
the sun-spotted face beyond a door cracked
open. I want a bucket list worn as lived skin,
all boxes checked but Plant me by the carrots.

by Matt Coonan

Franklin

Matt Coonan is a poet, emcee, and teacher from New York. He holds an MFA in creative writing and literature from Stony Brook University and is a three-time SUNY Oneonta Grand Slam Champion. He is also the recipient of a 2017 Live Mas Scholarship. He is the author of Toy Gun (Button Poetry, 2023), as well as two chapbooks. His poems have been featured on Button Poetry and published in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Southampton Review, Inklette, among others.

Website: mattcoonan.squarespace.com