This poem has its own house, a hundred closets where the mismatched towels go, one cupboard where the dishes rattle and chip because a train loses its track about 50 m away. Anyway, the train refuses to carry poems—it tears up their tickets and squeals away. So this poem walked over for for a cocktail or two: it wants to tell me who I am this evening. As if drinking a Last Word ever stops a poem. But never mind these spaces. I can’t count all my joints in disarray like the empty glasses this poem left on the coffee table. It took me all day to write myself back into this body, I complain. I knit my tongue into lace to say, You can put the unwholesome brain snacks anywhere you like, dollface. The poem flirts new metaphors into the mix. We forget houses and trains; the poem has pinned my elbows against a window; it leaves lip-prints in the condensation next to my neck.
Write a household poem
Last updated on December 6, 2021
Jessica Coles (she/her) is a poet and editor from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (Treaty 6 territory), where she lives with her family and a judgmental tuxedo cat named Miss Bennet. Check out the About page for more info.
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The day has no itemized list but it must be completed