Chamber Music by Cassidy McFadzean


Ringing in the year with brutalism and velour
Accidental accentual matching

Show me a building with no facing

The sparrow begging for crumbs
Nests within the hollow of your chest

What does it mean to be vulnerable?
I don’t disguise my raw materials

Sadness is present     Desire is present

Oversharing our worst selves
A ringing in the ears

A ringing in the ears

I could live pressed against your body
like a bird or polished stone

Brutal in the same basic way

Cassidy McFadzean holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives in Brooklyn. She is the author of two books of poetry: Drolleries (McClelland & Stewart 2019) and Hacker Packer (M&S 2015). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in BOAAT, Diode, Yalobusha Review, and Denver Quarterly.