Advice to a Writer Imagining Conception and Birth
Look for a tree stump in the woods. Compare it to love …
Your Hands
Like coals they ashed me bit by bit, your hands.
The open fire thrilled me, I admit—your hands.
Devotion
Image: “Dream House, Later” by Susan MacMurdy. “Devotion” was written by Brianna Locke for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
Diary Poems
What led her to write poetry she didn’t
show to others? She entrusted verses
to diaries with gold-edged pages, hidden
in a cedar chest.
Pigeon Dyed Pink
I too colored birds, or tried to. Mine
didn’t hatch. Every day, I peered
into the yellow incubators, hoping
Slut
In the parking lot of Churchill’s Garden Center, my mother
turned to me and said, I found the pills. I asked What pills?
though I knew.