In the cave, you know your own lies, the stars up your sleeve. A universe made from your own dust. On the floorboards, in the eaves. Even now, I make a cave with my knees. Meanwhile, I grow old in pencil shavings. The chalk of a week of eat & repeat. A season of burial, low tide, repeat. My body washed up on a sheet. There was no sleep, then only sleep. Remember sadness, immovable. Remember my palm a foreign thing.
What said the strangers when we could not read their lips?
Carrie Olivia Adams lives in Chicago, where she is the executive editor for the nonprofit, indie press Black Ocean and the Promotions and Marketing Communications Director for the University of Chicago Press. She is the author of five full-length poetry collections, The Book of Marys and Glaciers(forthcoming in April from Tupelo Press); Be the thing of memory (Tolsun Books 2021); Operating Theater (Noctuary Press 2015); Forty-One Jane Doe’s (book and companion DVD, Ahsahta 2013); and Intervening Absence (Ahsahta 2009) in addition to the chapbooks “Proficiency Badges” (Meeking Press 2020); “Grapple” (above/ground press 2017); “Overture in the Key of F” (above/ground press 2013); and “A Useless Window” (Black Ocean 2007). She is the curator of the Poetry & Biscuits house reading series, and when she’s not making poetry, she’s likely making biscuits. Her recent work, including pieces made while the Artist-in-Residence at the International Museum of Surgical Science, draws on found text and antique source material to tell the quiet stories of overlooked women. She also often collaborates with dancers, choreographers, and musicians to create works that expand beyond the static page. https://www.carrieoliviaadams.com
