a poem for you!

If you haven’t been receiving Keep Writing, here is the entire exquisite corpse style poem created through postcards and the mail, with a title I provided, 3-10 lines each from Brian Mattarochia, Anis Mojgani and Jenn Marie Nunes, with linking lines provided by subscribers. Each of these writers sent me lines in their handwriting, which I made into a printing plate and letterpress printed. It was started in September with the third installment sent in May. Across those months, I decided to move, changed my address and, like all of you, was ordered to stay home for the health and safety of others. So this surrealist party game has become an adventure.

WE CREATE NOTHING ALONE

I took your picture

with me in my pocket

when i went to the underworld

when I wandered into the woods

in my dreams

and never came back

never emerged from the other side

never came back

never came back out

there was a tiny perfect spider consuming me

and it was you.

You and the rest of your siblings

were gathering somewhere

and I was walking with the tiniest of blueberries

the sun overhead bright as a new tooth

I was missing something in me

not sure if it was what was always had once been in the hole

or if it was now the hole itself

but there was a song

and it was using my body to make itself move to make itself loud

and that which was tiny

was now immense

exhibit A

the system cracking out its

own ribs or

a cat flat on the tarmac

an eruption of flies

and when you name me

the small skin of which

contained me

lets you in.

I’m not going to lie—typing this out is the first time I’ve read it all together, and I am crying. Thank you all for participating. Always for being a part of things.

PS Anis and Jenn both have books of poetry that I can’t recommend enough.