This dresser’s wood has held some air in it—a dresser of air—and the air holdssomething about what it was to be alive sixty years ago:the kitchen brighter than its garbage,the hanging kitchen ornaments almost sarcastically still againstthe strength of the oncoming weekand how one usually looked at others in profileover a jar of mayonnaise—
I am over you as you try to fall asleep in your pack and play, little Franny,but it is hard for you because of your loose armspicking up handfuls of damp sleep sackand then dropping them, which wakes you up again.The way a dresser holds
things that are “precious” but not exactly something you want to keep—things that must be kept—I am a repository
of your head smell,some crumpled stickers,an accumulated mass of scraps I can eitherput in a…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, September/October 2019