Matt Cariello

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The Runner

Every step is a step
closer to pain, he says,
sweat flying from his fingertips.
What do you run from? I ask.
That same pain, he says,
slowly pulling away from me
in the heat.

Matt Cariello's fourth book, Self Portrait in the Dark (Finishing Line Press) will be released in May 2025. It follows The Empty Field, (2022 Red Moon Press), Talk (2019) and A Boat That Can Carry Two (2011) both published by Bordighera Press. He's had stories, poems, haiku, and reviews published in Bennington Review, Voices in Italian Americana, Poet Lore, Evening Street Review, Modern Haiku, The Long Story, Indiana Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Typehouse, Sheila-Na-Gig, The Journal, and others. He's currently a senior lecturer in the English department at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. These poems are also part of his new collection, Colloquy on Mad Tom, due out in June 2025.