Unlove Poem
If I call myself unlovable, I am, practically; if I say itenough times: unlovable. Then, like practical magic,
I’m hollow as old garlic; I’m distance-skinned.I’m a long, mean package, a terror-dyke, a nag, a squinting,
slut-spun hag—it’s easy, really. It’s the simplest thing,I do it in my sleep. I have invasive dreams,
after all, they infect my lover’s skull, they crank our jawsinto four slow hammers. After all, I’m made of distance
plus the beautiful things people have tried to putinside me, they fall out the bottom. No one can kill me
with kindness. No one can reach me through the soundof such ancestral ugly, sound of my grandmothers gagging
a half-century ago (did they?). My grandmother beatingher stomach with her fists, drinking medicine, then poison (did she?).
I’m distance-skinned. No one can put a story…
You're reading a preview of
The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, May/June 2022