There’s something about hunger I wanted to tell you
It’s impossible to know who belongs to the lake
Until it’s drained
Admittedly a swim was desirable and I undressed
Admittedly I went too far
I’ve been minding the mourning fires
For nearly a year now say it time has ended
Civilization is here with green buds beating
Our ears while we attend live radio shows and cover
Our mouths with rent garments pretending we know
What to hate
I wanted to say
Pour lake ice over me kiss my blue mouth
I am drinking milk as the earth tilts
More services were suspended today I pulled
My porch sweater over the windchill I spoke
Using someone else’s voice on purpose
All or none of this is accidental
I attempt a philosophy or a flower petal
See the wild violets sewn onto my eyelids
See the galaxies creased and set aside like newspapers
See the dogwood preparing to blow into pink flame
The government said come to the town hall meeting
Make your voices heard the government
Said don’t leave your homes
My lover bakes smells into the kitchen
She says don’t cry the bread already has salt
Then she falls on the floor and says I hate you good night
She says I love you and the wild stars
She says it’s the cat I hate and the sounds in my head
Listen
The mourning dove will conduct the dandelions
It seems we are all responding more or less to light
To the weeds pushing under the metal door

CASSIE DONISH is a nonbinary Jewish poet and writer, author of the poetry collections The Year of the Femme (University of Iowa Press, 2019), winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize, and Beautyberry (Slope Editions, 2018). Their nonfiction chapbook On the Mezzanine (Gold Line Press, 2019) was chosen by Maggie Nelson as winner of the Gold Line Press Chapbook Competition. Other writing has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Best New Poets, Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, Gettysburg Review, Guernica, jubilat, Kenyon Review Online, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. 

© Copyright echoverse anthology 2020. All Rights Reserved.