UPON THE SHELF THE WORLD IS CRYING
Mark Smith

Upon the shelf the children’s outdated globe is crying.
Drat that Daddy Warbucks. Before he left to spend
the morning gambling porkbellies and precious metals
he used his iron hand to rub red Canada for luck
and, for the heck of it, give Siberia a knuckle-sandwich.
Then he spun the world to make it dizzy. And now
the world is crying. Hush, little world, or his wee wifie
standing tip-toe on her little stool will turn you
upside down and spank your white Antartica.

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Mark Smith has published some ninety poems in various magazines, including Pleiades, New Letters, and the Gettysburg Review. A novelist, his The Death of the Detective, an NBA finalist, is available from Brash Books. An emeritus professor of English at the University of New Hampshire, he lives in DeLand, Florida.