Just UsMain Street Rag, 2022
Melissa Perri Smith
my hair isn't like that anymore.
candidate for an MFA at OSU-Cascades. otherwise, i'm not very cool
Arlington, VA, United States
Books
Selected work (5 publications)
Why 'Poetry' is Synonymous with 'War'I sit
up in bed and watch the way my boyfriend
worships the war-torn crevices of me,
and his tongue serves as an example of
the crippling nature of poetry, the way our
words cannot forget the bodies they were
born into.
poetry
Winter Rainsback issue four bbbbb
poetry
Birch TreeThere aren’t birch trees here, or at least I’ve
never seen one. The tree I remember is split
like a wishbone, & I used to sit in the middle
of it, back hooked with feet pushing, to see if
I could make it break.
poetry
The Daughter I'll Never HaveI hold her against my breastbone. She suckles & spits up
her food, & I wake next to my college boyfriend, miles from
where I fell asleep, in a wedding dress that my mother hand-
stitched for me, bulging with the bump of her granddaughter.
poetry