Never Slow Down

      for The Stig

I only know two facts about ducks, and both of them are wrong.
I drive stick with my left foot. Mr. Sulu is my mate.

Bells scare me, stairs confuse me, my right hand's magnetic. Some say
that's why I naturally point north, why I never blink,

why I invented November & the curtain. I once punched a horse
to the ground. My tears are adhesive; they've glued

my visor shut. I speak to stars, if only to keep them safe. I have terrible
plans for the moon. As for my opinions,

they're rubbish, like my paisley-lined ears, like my name.
Actually, I don't think I've ever had one. All I know is this.

T.A. Noonan is the author of two hybrid-genre collections, The Bone Folders and Petticoat Government, as well as the chapbooks Darjeeling and Balm. Her work has appeared in Verse Daily, Ninth Letter, RHINO, Phoebe, Harpur Palate, and many others. "The Trouble with Correspondence," her essay on the intersections of witchcraft and body image, was named a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2011. Currently, she lives on Florida's Treasure Coast with her husband and serves as both the Associate Editor of Sundress Publications and Managing Editor of Flaming Giblet Press.

TPQ3