Suit of Armor Made of Man

Cole. Hardware for the soul.
Cut like a threaded bolt.

Marrow. Straight as an arrow.
Leather for your kidding,

Isom. Come in. Time is come.
What if it opens your door?

Ishmael, in a dish towel
at the stovetop, like a pine.

Blazon. Chutes and raisins.
Big gold hoops, and bangarang

crystal. Dental, distal.
Cooking, cleaning, begging, weaning

me of the known world. The
Cole Hardware. Sole supplier

of Hercules. Hercules, Hercules.

Tanner Pruitt studied creative writing at the University of Virginia, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Bucknell University’s Stadler Center for Poetry, and served as an assistant director of the Young Writers Workshop in Sweet Briar, Virginia before moving to San Francisco. He works on the corporate strategy team at Everlaw, a company that makes software for lawyers and legal professionals. Some of his other poems can be found online in Witness, Bennington Review, and Interim: A Journal of Poetry and Poetics.