Dust Jackets Imply what your Book will be Gathering. By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

It’s as if they know right from the beginning

and plan for the flop, hold back a little of that push money

when the time comes to put yourself out there,

put a jacket over the bloody thing to keep it warm 

during critic season –

dust jackets imply what your book will be gathering;

straight from the printers to the “special archives”

section of some nowhere university library 

that may as well be storing dead bodies on ice

so that when they come back at you, it is YOU that 

didn’t sell and never them, because THEY are in the business

of selling which means you always fail 

and they never do.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly,The Rye Whiskey Review, Outlaw Poetry Network, Under The Bleachers, The Dope Fiend Daily and In Between Hangovers.