By Harper Russet
unwrapped another rejection email
from another magazine, then
unwrapped the poems trying
to find the disease
that made them glow radioactive
in the eyes of poets
better than me;
couldn’t find it, only
saw a hurt i’d worked so hard on
and a hurt i didn’t have to try for
at all, just came naturally,
and i think maybe i sent the wrong hurts
to the southern indiana review.
maybe i left the poems about trees
and clouds
and airplanes
and all that good and dry shit,
that shit real literaries love,
that shit that don’t scare no one –
i left it on the table
and mailed the bodies
of every bad day i’d ever had,
dressed them up in my baby clothes,
and let them wail
right into the editor’s ear:
please, don’t print this.
please, don’t let anyone look at me.