poem: the art of fiction no. 1

my aunt is a poet, my aunt is this old womanwho sits framed in windowsills and does not recognize the windowsill, the divide between inside/outside, she tells that shitlike it is; that is the privilege of being old, when I talklike that, people call me a bitch. but all I am doing is telling the…

poem: woman vs. truth

his future was in his face,mine is in my crouch: a laundry-listof menial prostitution, bracketing the old crushesand old trauma and old men (hoveringaround the desk, watchingme work). i am reselling myselfday by day, in twenty-twenty-one,trauma is profittrauma is business. he thought he was terriblyoriginal: pretty boy, fucking the systemand then me after. next timei…

writing: the holiday girl

not all of the following makes sense, really, but I'm publishing it anyway. call it "writing practice" and read at your own risk. "The meaning of literature" is something I think about often, especially after fucking, when my boyfriend has rolled away to stare at a book and I stare at the wall. I know…

poem: for/against

to what degree are the romantics, the pin-addled girls in black/white deconstructedjumpsuit-jail-cell-dresses now allowedto take fruit, wine, a little foreign cheese— like the system,it is only half molded, they sayplayfully/carefully— out to the dregsof connecting countries:the border, very political, a greatgreen country best fitfor running hounds and sittingin tweed, reading, watching. you can smellit on…

poem(s): split

boy in his head she is a woman I knew, when I was younger. she starts and stops— like porn dissolving, reloading into a face like Iceland, two eyes, two fishes swimming into my mouth— reloading their shaking pupils. when you tip your neck, I would like to bite the wet skin. - - -…

poem: the view from my living room window

some people light small fires—I, am lit. someday i will be won and not waiting: it is an old refrain, told by older woman; in the still afternoon i watch three sparrows circle my childhood, the greens glowing yellow, and i think— there is something waiting out there, there is something roaring.

poem: stay-at-home woman

do you remember the red telephone, sitting like a silent cat, renovating the hall with its small plastic face? i watched you leave, the first day, and then i called my mother. the baby was twisting like an almond, a sliver in my ocean-split stomach; i put my hands over my mouth so she wouldn’t…

poem: the ancient man

his hands, holding me were like the ocean exploding in my mouth. and I brought the long fingers, the star-fish arms studded with sea spray and drowned crow gilt— i let them buzz me, the edges of things breaking against me like i was the world and he was the water.

poem: medieval rhapsody

maids stand legion— we have nothing but the iron on our checks, the sex rimmed over our lips as if we were bowls, made to pour out and be poured into. sir, if you would touch my check and untie the red skirt, I swear I will be true, I will not send letters to…

poem: maniac pixie dream girl

when I was younger I wanted to be the personification of some artist's inner life— i would be the girl with the mask tacked on backwards, the girl over-thinking her image— i would be youth, hope, the red blushes in forests, the red blushes when boys lean in close and say things from books—like this…