it was set free when
I was a teenager,
out the passenger window
of a 71 Cutlass, leaping
from the arms of a Michelle
into the suburban forest
where still I hear the creature
howl its song; listen
and you will hear it too,
the un-capturable beast of many escapes
moving through the darkness,
its presence like a ghost—known only
by story and the rustling
leaves of night.
Virginity
Daniel Robbins is a graduate student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he served as editor for the Kaleidoscope and technical writer for the IT department. Recently, he has appeared in The Allegheny Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, and Aura Literary Arts Review. He has won several awards including the Barkesdale-Maynard Poetry Award and a Hackney Literary Award for Poetry, and is currently working on a book about comic-book literature entitled In Defense of Men in Tights.
Daniel Robbins was nominated for Poets Under 30 by Bob Collins.