#courage dear heart

To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall
Kim Addonizio

If you ever woke in your dress at 4 A.M. ever
closed your legs to someone you loved opened
them for one you didn’t moved against
a pillow in the dark stood miserably on a beach
seaweed clinging to your ankles paid
good money for a bad haircut backed away
from a mirror that wanted to kill you bled
into the back seat for lack of a tampon
if you swam across a river under rain sang
using a dildo for a microphone stayed up
to watch the moon eat the sun entire
ripped out the stitches in your heart
because why not if you think nothing &
no one can / listen I love you joy is coming

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Today in:

2021: You Mean You Don’t Weep at the Nail Salon?, Elizabeth Acevedo
2020:Let Me Begin Again, Philip Levine
2019:Hammond B3 Organ Cistern, Gabrielle Calvocoressi
2018:Siren Song, Margaret Atwood
2017:A Sunset, Ari Banias
2016:Coming, Philip Larkin
2015:The Taxi, Amy Lowell
2014:Winter Sunrise Outside a Café Near Butte, Montana, Joe Hutchison
2013:The Last Night in Mithymna, Linda Gregg
2012:America [Try saying wren], Joseph Lease
2011:Boston, Aaron Smith
2010:How Simile Works, Albert Goldbarth
2009:Crossing Over, William Meredith
2008:The World Wakes Up, Andrew Michael Roberts
2007:Hour, Christian Hawkey
2006:For the Anniversary of My Death, W.S. Merwin
2005:The Last Poem About the Snow Queen, Sandra M. Gilbert