list of things that resemble the shape of my mother’s body
a broken atomic clock, a bin of turquoise marbles, hair sweepings, a weakening
memory, blue dish soap pooled to a dent in tarnished stainless steel, a kettle of
just boiling water, an empty hand, a robin’s egg, an ever-filling clean plate, a book of
matches, vitreous plastic, a glowing magpie, a stone smoothed out by immemorable
time, a fresh set of dull knives, a cake made to look like anything a cake is
not supposed to be, a dreamcatcher with the price tag still on it, a postcard from
somewhere familiar but unknown, a fly making its home out in the open, a war without
a subject, a name without any index to description, a center without a place
sewing machines
give me a hammer a needle a bobbin to
make something stable a skirt for my sonnet
a dress for my burial a shoe for my offing
please let me have flowers have bows for my
coffin they’ll read when it’s after the tears
and the laughter they’ll mark my clichés up
with words i’ll get last of sewn into my
mattress like paper sopranos slept on by an
actress her jaw barely passes for full blood
italian a muff or a stallion historic parameter
outlines a race through the grapevines wait i
heard this new thing about sewing machines
& now i feel unclean if you
know what i mean
arien wolf lives and writes in southern—california, studying poetry at uc irvine, where their work often concerns processes of identification and the many aporias that come with its representation.