Carlie Hoffman
It's not my business, but each time I glimpse
a small girl, bleary-eyed, staring down
at her shoes, hair greased
from longing as the train
rattles on over rats and bits of trash
through the dark, I want
to make a girl-pact
that whatever she is
dreaming there, night flashing
at her back, she will go on
in spite of. Though it is not
my business just
a moment ago you stood
four-feet tall on the subway stairs,
the railing between them:
I'll fucking smack you
Fuck you bitch
as you tried to pull
your mother's coat
away from the years of what
comes next. Not
my business, but know
this is not about the story of a
mother and father gone bad, but worse—
it is about a woman and man
alone, so many houses ago,
picking dog hair from the meat
chucked on the living room rug,
thick in the part of the plot
of your inheritance, and as you walk
up the stairs toward the tail end
of winter, a twist to your pace,
I can only give you this pact:
When you grow taller and repulsed
by your hair pinned back, the tie
around your neck while you carry
hot plates from table to table, your heart
a half-stone tugging you inward, when your
rage for the order of things shocks you
into stillness, move faster
until you reach a room in a city
you recognize least, and you will
know to call this home.
from the book THIS ALASKA / Four Way Books
READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM
Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Forward Forward
Ilya Kaminsky on His Viral Poem and Ukrainian Resistance

"Beginning with the poem 'We Lived Happily During the War,' which is heavy with irony about the greatness of our capitalist nation, shows a different kind of so-called happiness, the happiness of living with our backs turned—ignorant bliss. The poem is meant to serve as a wake-up call; to prevent people from reading 'Deaf Republic' as a tragedy of elsewhere. Deaf Republics, with their hopes, protests, and complicities, are everywhere. We live in the Deaf Republic." 

via SLATE
READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES
Buying Books This Week-End?

Purchase your books, whether or not you discovered them on Poetry Daily, at our virtual bookstore on Bookshop. Every book you buy helps to bring the best contemporary poetry to you every morning.
What Sparks Poetry:
Chantal Neveu (Montreal) on EcoPoetry Now

"And when one takes last enough time, something can happen, an event, a sequence — unexpected. This phenomenon, without precedent, makes possible so much. To persist. Vibrate. Move. Resist. Founder. Transform. Separate. Shine — or not. In the breath of words are sounds, sensations, thoughts, meanings, objects, actions, passions, questions — random, rendered, phrased, fractals, ellipses, textualities, poems."
READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
View in browser

You have received this email because you submitted your email address at www.poems.com. 
If you would like to unsubscribe please click here.

© 2022 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030

Design by the Binding Agency