"Testing the Water"

I live life without a wallet

like a nudist

or a dog.

I wear my hair up and my toe

is always testing

the temperature.

Sometimes I feel the universe expanding.

It tickles.

A thick

wall once primal passes

through me.

Sometimes people leave home to suffer

indifference and write

the sort of love poems

to the ocean

that they want the ocean

to write to them.

Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has two new chapbooks: Simpler Times and Staring Down Miracles. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit, and Cream City Review.