THE BARGE
I am living in a hotel because I argued with my husband. The argument started after a commercial for a robot that cares for the elderly. The ad tried to make it seem like the elderly couldn’t tell the difference, but these machines looked noth- ing like people. I turned to my husband and said, […]
Two Poems from the Fence book LIKE YOU – Winner of the 2020 Ottoline Prize
A PAIR OF AIRS For Summer, from Winter A little bird said you’re thinking of me. I get wild with torture, poor chickadee. Should I warm to a halo or an angel in the snow? Summertime, I’m afraid I don’t remember how. Here is a snowflake that looks like a lover swaying […]
The Room of Escape & Leisure
The lights are always on in the room of escape & leisure. If you’re passing by, you might mistake it for the dim glow of a falling miracle. On its wall, a woman with her baby and goat sit still on their knees looking up towards the sky painted in watercolors. They pray in […]
Breaking
It was because of Alex that my own obsession with her, one that I could call my own and not his, grew, because when he watched Donna the way he did I wanted to know what it was about her, and so I watched her, too, and I watched him watching her—the way he found […]
Shearling
She never did get out of that town. It is a very common story and this one is hers: Her father insisted she and her sister wear skirts until the 7th grade. No one understood why he did this. Everyone understood why he did this. They had no brothers. Her stepmother was famous at their […]
The Please Stop Killing Us and Destroying Everything That Sustains Us Society
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the first meeting of the Please Stop Killing Us and Destroying Everything That Sustains Us Society. I know that some people feel that organisation and protest are not the correct responses to recent events, including the events that involve us being killed and everything that sustains us being destroyed. Some […]
The Shopping Plaza, The Stand-up Comic
THE SHOPPING PLAZA My mom’s car is full of leaf beetles. For each beetle that flies back out of the window, two new beetles appear. My mom does not acknowledge the leaf beetles. She is late to meet my sister at the shopping plaza. My sister is waiting at the shopping plaza. The shopping […]
Talking Dog
There has to be a way in to the feelings in which something is at stake without sacrificing myself (and my loves!) to serve as tedious little idols— there has to be a way to feel without names— When you left me and I believed it was only for a while I was […]
for Jair
in dead of dawn my phone beats me awake with a voice on the line asking if I talked to you & I knew it was you she meant because your texts just twelve hours back misbehaved & spilled your panic I bypassed for sake of short-range saneness before warfare at the day gig which […]
Do the Sounds of Crystal in Your Nighttime Nest Surprise You?
When did I know Sonia? Well I knew her in Chicago. I must have lived there for a while. It felt long—extended. A sudden new apartment is the caesura of city-living, an interruption that continues the poem. I knew Sonia when I did not even know Nina. Nina did not replace Sonia. These were not […]
