< >
Emily Kendal Frey
IN MEMORY OF MY PARENTS WHO ARE NOT DEAD YET
Is it harder for the bachelorette or her suitors?
The brown oyster mushroom
on her face is possibly the most perfect
nose I have ever seen. I think people
might actually win love. The funny guy always
appeared safe but later you saw him
in the dark green yard
puking, a thin
sweat on the back of his neck.
I want the air I breathe
to maintain my body’s
mystery. I worry I’ll run into you at a party
then I remember I don’t go to parties
so I’m safe. I have no godly discipline.
When someone yells I still huddle
under a want for ice cream.
How can you love people
without them feeling accused
If I wanted to win
I would draw harder lines
and sit next to them, stay
awake, rattle the box of bullets.
When we touch my heart
gets green
and white, preppy, bordered,
oh! she says and perks up.
It hurts to not be everyone else. If love dies
it was already dead.
Emily Kendal Frey lives in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of several chapbooks and chapbook collaborations, including Frances, Airport, Baguette, and The New Planet. The Grief Performance, her first full-length collection, won the Norma Farber First Book Award from The Poetry Society of America in 2012. Her second collection, Sorrow Arrow, is available from Octopus Books.