Real Will

the real William Shakespeare could never have this much fun. so here I am, all dolled up in my monikers, and reveling in the credit.

(just imagine the court gossip!)

I give the Queen what she wants—another play about dragons. she loves watching the monsters wingbeat it to the scene. soon a nobleman, a cousin of mine actually, is getting married; I plan to write something frisky.

Stratford-upon-Avon is so boring, but nobody thinks to look there. I have another family: a wife and children. I love them like you’d love a stranger, like a teakettle boiling in a dream.

life is like a message scribbled on a piece of cheese and placed upon a mouse trap. the real William Shakespeare lives there, cocked, ready for his moment.

“Boogie Town” originally appeared in Pacifica Review.

“At the Races” and “Spanish Days” originally appeared in The Volta. will stanier is a poet and letterpress printer from Athens, Georgia. He currently lives in Tucson, where he graduated from the University of Arizona’s mfa in Creative Writing. He is the author of a chapbook, Everything Happens Next (Blue Arrangements, 2021). His poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Yes Poetry, Cleaver Magazine, Interim, The Volta, Pacifica, and Lazy Susan 2.