To remember this dark thing when I’m
eating an orange and wanting kissing
is dropping a jar of peppermints,
name-dropping a dead friend, like
“oops the sweetness fell on
the old floor I am sorry.”

…

Because you walked in
with that bad jacket,
looking sad like a rag,
I pitied you tenderly.
What have I done to you,
you poor poor coal in
the lady-burning furnace,
you poor sorry weeper?

Oh how I loathe you.
—No, no.
Oh how I love you?
    Yeah, maybe.

I hate to be Christ-like but
I can’t stop trying.
I can’t write a poem.
Ugly word: rape. Can’t say it.
Foggy conditions these days.

Yeah, I am a little burdened fish in a bowl.

bubble bubble bubble. splash!

This is a guest post by Fiona Garver Craig. She lives in Brattleboro, Vermont. She studies writing and philosophy at Marlboro College. When not writing and studying, Fiona works as a farmhand and waitress. Fiona lives across from a very old graveyard with a very fat cat named Twig, and likes it that way.