By: Carrie MacLeod
i can’t think with you staring at me
wash then / forwarding
entire mother shell
speaks grist / lines developed for
elderly leisure / alone by the
pool & tempted to wear nothing
she spits to be done with the divine
headache / & all babies / at war
in the hollow of her eye
interrupted / particle of dust settling
to flower / a watery cushion
erasing stray marks / generous
disadvantage / several softened icons
manifesting / at the boiling point
she prays for disaster in small installments
two ripe pears sliced & again / several
torn magazines / if nausea were a cereal this
would make better reading / she thinks
to become dull / first become plain / then
become hollow / in holiness however
in suspicion she breaks small objects
as if testing her ability to withstand
withering vessel / declining witness
to plenary gaze / she does an awkward
backbend / collapsing / we weep &
smother
claire standish
a rare hand swallows its tide
like a hem
& nearer the selfish bath
i am neither washing nor in love
with the dropped
she sang if she said
i know this crane = a wall
& dress while there is no dress
to sacrifice paleness or the ugly
dreaming weekend
when i am counted
will they lift my arms
to see the new wave
& plow spoiling friends
i can’t hear the hissing or your
microwave bullet breakfast
my sister left a voicemail that
sounded like superior drums
forced of their own pounding
in anger that i argue
is fair but atonal we weld
our hands to the wooden spoon &
forty-five minutes later
she is on the phone
complaining that
the cello is useless &
her hands a european joke
i am dry to begin with
unmarried & mute
hallucinations in severance
mere isometrics in whose
grim torque i play violin
to disturb your selfishness
only the truly pissed off will
respond / others climb furniture
& borrow my cotton / through
screens of dismembered paint
i feed false air to warehouses
& know their plea to reach the
seventh floor
in orange microdresses / deciding
one night is a barred form
is a cold smear is a sour cake
& tomorrow we exchange purses
in an open air flea market where
my hair is high & wound into
a clasping flower
do they say we are armed
or ivory-billed
delayed post-haste delivered front door
i break into my neighbor’s apartment
& steal the mail
why is it all so dull
Carrie MacLeod is a disabled poet/musician from Trenton, New Jersey. She studied poetry at the University of Maine, Western Connecticut State, and the New School. Her poems can be found in SUSAN/The Journal and Q/A Poetry. She lives in Maine with her children and cats.