I’m Always Talking
About my hands or mention
In relation to you or missing
Familiar image, Titanic even
Photo of a poem sent, a sext
Meet me in Montauk kind-
Ness escaped the last time
We spoke I was liquid and/or
Popcorn almost on your lap
Grabbed at a thing I felt
Still grabbing the hands parting
Rocks under my feet, shoes off
Trapping tadpoles inside my palms
Catching whatever disease you
Yellow haired and unkind under
Me a body removed from
Old spring in the theatre seat
Remind me your thoughts on
Comfort and how art is not
Ask a goldenrod to stop
Pretend the blue rise doesn’t
Heat our faces the same but
Here we were, next to
Each pressing matter again
Enter a room hollowed of sound
Me I can be more than
You another equation in
Catastrophe the city means well
So many people wander look
There was a time the colors didn’t
But that’s another story and who
I am among them is now
Fish struggles in my hands clasp
Nothing to fight anymore
Where to hide under at this age
Oblivious to seasonality
Necessity vs youth something
An epilogue ties up neat
Yellow ribbon wrapped loose
My ponytail bobbing in fits
Package I can’t open until
The same scene again
My face made-up but
There’s no one to check
My temperature to tell
If I’m cheating or heating
On a hot young bulb
Sometimes I wish you would stalk me
I’m always sitting on my danger
zone I’m leaking this
wide load I’m bearing or
baring too much meat
on the bread
white paper napkin
pocket my lunch
there are splinters
waiting on the wood
there are red beans
to add to this soup but
dare I say darling
dare I say missing
all this distance the speed
living accrues
pick up the new key
unlock the door
what else is worth speaking
dare I say had you
dare I say almost
pretend not to notice
strangers you were too
say you hate comfort
say you hate money
so I twist a rubber band
to remind myself
I razor my legs
to find comfort in routine
dare I say sturdy
dare I say save me
but I know you
never hold a hand only
watch til it’s over
so I’ll say try me
comb out my hair
and I’ll be this tall
building grey skyline
my reach toward thirsty
never holding
only grabbing
so I’ll say lamppost
hope you say sturdy
and in the morning
I might build
you the empire
of my waist
Midwestern Tendency
Return to panic climate
reclamation, a corset education
in plain nonsense A rhetoric or dis-
covery, wood under carpet
It looks so fucking good There
the question as simple as do
you grow hair on the backs
of your hands and what is
the back to you I’m jealous
of people who are so alone
it hurts them I want to
ask how does one fracture
the pelvic bone can I try
if only to take some time
off from under a body
or how to become a new-
er orchid One single cut
the backs of men and me
another body places
itself out on a limb
to turn over the toast
a darker side exposed then
covered in spread the action
of misplacing a pair of earrings
or another thing entirely that
time I tried to jump the turnstile
a man in plain clothes says we’re
all adults here so calm down
The Witch
In the town where I grew up
The one on my block with
The branches growing up &
The leaves blocking her porch
From view so that named her
The witch with her dark hair
And no ring or man but two dogs
Big ones to keep the children out
So we walked slowly past
& Could not see inside but some boxes
Near the front door just beyond the screen
& Maybe she heard us outside thinking we
Were very very quiet but that is impossible
For children but she may have been quiet
Damning her more so & am I making
This part up when we snuck upstairs
To the bedroom with the one twin bed
Whose was it it was so dark yes maybe
A boy was dog sitting & let us in with a key
But also I was a child & had a lively imagination
I secretly nursed this quiet desire for her to call me
Into her house alone & curse me like only a witch can
Sad song w/ domestic undertone
I live in deep secret
the home of a lover
inside a stale carton
of smokes we sleep
to die a romantic death
an idea that passes
with each year dream
a mortgage and two
maybe three kids an empire
of name to swallow
after or spit decisions
the right to buy a pill
push out the world
a larger price the real dilemma
one scoop or two
pull of belonging to comfort
what I enjoy
a good ripe fruit
not the kind that irritates
my throat itches & swells
opening of a flame it fits
in my palms for others
empty the contents to the floor
someone always walking by asking
for something I need too
the right to have arms
to hold my body upright
smell the sand in me again
as it glistens and groans
with each movement I allow
this to be done to make
a real center hollowed
the unseen my greatest
achievement the years
I live out under sleep
ALEXIS POPE is the author of Soft Threat (Coconut Books, 2014), and three chapbooks. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Volta, Denver Quarterly, No Dear, Octopus, and Forklift Ohio, among others. She is an assistant editor for ILK Journal, involved with the Belladonna* Series, and lives in Brooklyn.