"Why are you tracing screenshots
of Disney princesses, little gay girl—
following the anti-gravity flow
of a mermaid’s hair
or the scalloped lines of petticoat
under a gold silk skirt?"

"Little Gay Girl"

Works presented: "An Ode," "My meds are suppressing a mental breakdown—," "On Arranging My Writing," "Prayer to Galatea," "In the Ring," "Drinking Games," and "Things That Sit Inside Me."

Selected Works

"the fairy godmother will say
what she will
on the necessary things
that bring maidens 
happily-ever-after:

we must hold on to 
the magic gowns and capes 
and missing rings
we find along the way—"


"letting go of things that hurt to hold"

"We focused on different features
when we first heard the tale.
Now, we sing the structure,
the rhymes and epithets,
but rewrite the lines between
without ever realizing."

"Oral Tradition"

"But bitter fights can happen,
and peacemaking can reveal
the cracks that always existed,
and sometimes it is better
to just stop texting someone."


"For the girl who wore stilettos"

"I have loved you many a year—
you season, clad in green silk;
you castle of herbs, mosses, and flowers."

"a-Maying"

"I see ghosts in every corner of my house"

"I want to be high femme, not like,
pastel sweaters and knee-length skirts femme,
but like, short a-line hems and hairbows
and those crop-top Y2K cardigans
with nothing underneath."

"An Assignment from my Therapist"

"I watch my neighbor clean his boat—
scooping out stormwater 
with an empty milk jug;"

"Tending the Altar"

"Pass all the other residents
with their nightgowns and dinner trays
and fishbowl eyes.
Don’t break your pace.
Give them the slight-smile-and-nod."


"Directions for Incoming Visitors"

"Sometimes, I worry I don’t fit
in the space I claim to;
my identity is an untested hypothesis,
and she’s the only evidence in my arsenal
besides a feeling I can only
half-articulate, and a hope
that I am what I think I am."

"Theoretical"

"My ghosts move
from apartment to apartment.
It is time for a new place, and
they are coming with me 
again—"

“I see ghosts in every corner of my house”

"I feel him walking
inside of me.
He traces my veins,
a cartographer trapped
in a labyrinth—"

“An Intrepid Mapmaker Lost in Ancient Ruins”

"Waiting for Arthur in Funtown Splashtown USA"

"If I circle the block enough,
I know I will find something green—
something I can pull out by the roots,
where I’ll find the missing words
tangled up inside."

"I am trying to remember how to write poetry"

"I am like a crocus coming in—
breaking from the dirt and

breathing."

"A poem for mid-March"

"Steady aim on the pins,
but I’d crash the windows instead.
Dent the walls.
Trash the whole damn place."

"Unforgiveness sits in my brain like a bowling ball,"

"To cope, my mother takes up two addictions:
Coca-Cola from soda fountains
and cigarette smoke."

rachelmcfinney

Selected work