Poetry from The Literary Review



Sample Citizen

Tom Chandler



Because he owned a television
almost the size of the moon
he told himself the moon was
actually the size that it appeared to be,
a tarnished dime on tattered cloth;
because he lived in Saginaw or Omaha
he took it out on the family dog
when no one was around and sat
before bed in his roofless yard,
its small ground surveyed each night
in his dream as he powerslept
his powersleep so desperately
his brain would clench and squeak
until the house and roofless yard
were two feet deep in raining dimes
and he could finally watch TV
by simply staring where the moon
had been or had been thought to be.