Blasted straight through from the start. Blown-glass myth in hand; spoon at riverbank. Reach west, drift for once with current. At odds amid cavernous years, leapfrog from manmade lake to lake as ocean. Island from air—billowing, an infiltration. Spinning tandem magnets, energy unpinned. Traditional terror instinct. Destruction as control mechanism. Fail-safe failure. Congress of sunlight at whose behest. Dandelion root-split, football field of bleacher memory. Roof blown off: windy commitment. Early-morning bird come calling. Blinking brilliant sundown and entirely empty.
Marisa Siegel holds an MFA in Poetry from Mills College in Oakland, CA. Her essay “Inherited Anger” appears in the anthology Burn It Down (Seal Press, 2019) & her debut poetry chapbook, Fixed Stars, is out now from Burrow Press. Poems have recently appeared or are soon forthcoming in Voicemail Poems, Hobart, Autofocus, & Sweet: A Literary Confection. She is senior acquiring editor for trade at Northwestern University Press, & editor-at-large for The Rumpus. Find her on Twitter at @marisasaystweet & on Instagram at @marisaemily.