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of my throat come out of my chest I want to hear my own voice what is it you want from this shtetl my bed what is it you want from within me please come out I want to touch what I want to touch please I need to be alone again
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now listen to the words when I breathe—you couldn’t when I was before you—listen to the sounds echoing in your ears the pulse the hollow of singing you remember your knuckles darkened with potato dust and now you’ll remember my darkness inside your neck those nights sweet dusky wood and snow sifting through knotholes like splinters know I can reach everywhere now your brain and your heart everywhere is ecstatic keep me—hold me in your wet hollow chest my earthly walk redeemed you’re mine—my steps on the dirt yours—I like it here
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Gemma Cooper-Novack is the author of We Might As Well Be Underwater (Unsolicited Press, 2017). Her poetry and fiction have appeared in more than forty journals, including Glass, Midway Journal, and Lambda’s Poetry Spotlight, and been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net Awards. Published chapbooks include Too Much Like a Landscape (2015, with Warren Tales) and “Bedside Manner” (The Head and the Hand, 2020). Gemma’s plays have been produced in Chicago, Boston, and New York. She was a runner-up for the 2016 James Jones First Novel Fellowship, and has been awarded artist’s residencies from Catalonia to Virginia and a grant from the Barbara Deming Fund. Gemma is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Literacy Education at Hobart & William Smith Colleges.
Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash
