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poem



by Willie Carver



Sleeping with the Mothman in a Motel 6 in Parkersburg, West Virginia

 


It took two key swipes to get in

the door to the Motel 6 the first time

 

I slept with Mothman I stumbled

tipsy and giggly past the windows nailed


shut and door dented by the drunk

and angry fists of now long sober


or long dead men and he was already

in the room fiddling with the remote


red eyes floating like burning giant

cigars and I didn’t have to speak


a word because he already knew

I was drinking to forget the things


he lifted out his wings and the air

swam with starless electric dreams


I relaxed into him and red wine eye glow

purred revelations across the dusty drywall


ceiling and puckering of cigarette

burned comforters until the future


started melting down the interstate

running east to west to east to west


and the cars and the people in them

waited and hoped for their exits.


 

Willie Carver Jr. is a minoritized youth advocate, Kentucky Teacher of the Year, and the author of Gay Poems for Red States, a Stonewall, American Library Association, Read Appalachia, Whippoorwill, and Book Riot-award winning collection. His fragmented novel, Tore All to Pieces, will be published in Spring 2026 by the University Press of Kentucky. Willie writes poetry and fiction from Appalachia and believes everyone deserves to feel that they matter.

 

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Sena Jeter Naslund-Karen Mann Graduate School of Writing

Spalding University

851 S. Fourth Street

Louisville, Kentucky 40203

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