Cortney Lamar Charleston is the author of Telepathologies, selected by D.A. Powell for the 2016 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. A recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and The Conversation Literary Festival, his poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Beloit Poetry Journal, Gulf Coast, The Iowa Review, The Journal, New England Review, POETRY, River Styx, TriQuarterly and elsewhere

POETRY

SuICIdE, iT’S a SuiCIDe

By CORTNEY LAMAR CHARLESTON

I won’t ever / get       their trying to grab a gun if they’re not completely committed to shooting