Little Masticated Darlings by Lannie Stabile

Also available on Kindle here

Little Masticated Darlings is a series of true crime poems regarding the slayings of two young boys in the summers of 1984 and 1985.

This book is about meat, the juicy discovery of a family secret, and the flesh of boys under a savage summer sun.
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Your mother is there,
youthfully stoic
Your face registers distrust, 
even while your tiny hand rests 
deadenly on the shoulders 
of a man in prison-issued khakis
His thin fingers choke your thigh
as he squeezes your body into 
the cold space between him 
and your mother.​