Well, it’s time for sleep again, bang
the pillow to my head.
I’ll call you three times in the morning
and send you sweet texts all day. Fill my thermos
with spiced tea. I’m here in the mirror
just giving and giving. Slide
down your pants, the pillow.
Brush the greens out of my teeth.
*
a bathroom in Natalie’s old house
sitting, both, tubbed
June gulls flock
the window squawks
*
Emileeeeeee we’re going to lift you up
we’re going
to lift you
up. You’re light
as
a feather
*
Why does Augustine
confess
to me?
*
May I become more free, more still,
go beyond language
into heart failure,
get back
to the back back of the brain
and turn the microphone on.
*
I like how you can look
at 9 x 9 and know 81!
and never say the numbers in your head.
Shadow work.
*
Gather around
the white table. Aunt Betty’s old thing.
It’s so close to the stove.
Who set up the American kitchen
so we have to carry our food
from fire to table?
A real problem
like the locks on the door
keeping me in and you all out.
Well, I’m disappointed
by this:
Emily Brandt edits No, Dear magazine, a poetry journal for NYC writers, and teaches at a public high school in Brooklyn. She earned her MFA from New York University where she was awarded a fellowship to teach Creative Writing to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Her poems have recently appeared in Epiphany, Berkeley Poetry Review, Lyre Lyre, and Forklift, Ohio.