Flagships by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many mounds of snow.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as:Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Cultural Weekly, The Song Is..., Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

                                                                        

Flagships

The books on my bed are friends.

If we were lovers I would probably be a librarian.

But prospective employers have always been suspect of me.

Like they can see the sadness for myself in my face

and take it as a personal slight.

Or perhaps they can see all the sick calls

before they ever happen.

I am ill and no one wants the troubles of that.

I understand.  The books on my bed are all flagships.

The oceans we traverse together have nothing

to do with water.