Marc Swan, 7/2/2012

Current Occupation: Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor

Former Occupation: Free-lance writer

Contact Information: Marc Swan lives in Portland, Maine, a working seaport with a thriving arts community. He has new work coming out in Slipstream, Common Ground, Pearl and Owen Wister Review, WORK Literary Magazine, among others. Simple Distraction, a collection of his poems from 1989 to 2009, was published in fall 2009 by tall-lighthouse in London, England.

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Fuck you and the horse you rode in on

In the insurance company where I work

a clinician whose wife is three months

pregnant calls his boss in New Jersey

to tell her there is a medical problem

and he needs to take his wife quickly

to the emergency room. The boss in

New Jersey who is also a nurse asks

my friend how many file reviews he

can complete before he takes his wife

to the hospital. My friend’s face turns

very red, his eyes start to glaze over as

he punches an imaginary wall— but he

doesn’t say what he holds tightly coiled

like a rattlesnake inside his shaking head

the unspeakable words I now say for him.