By Amy Simone Piller
The honor roll is postedon dinky, pastel colored paperun-centered and haphazardbetween gold glittered stars,glue-stick gunk still showing.Kids chatter excitedlyabout making it.
They are responsible for making meaningI realize at parent teacher conferenceswhen of the mere 37 parents that come,every honor-roll student is represented.
What hope do those kids havewho won’t even feel the pleasureof the half glittered [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
I sit by my windowopen to the wind hardening nudity,as winter comesto us, confused.
What might happen next little branch, to which I’ve grown so attached?
I wonder if leaves ever wantto hear you say their nameeven as they fall.
By Amy Simone Piller
Sitting on the countertop you tell me about accidentally shooting a goose,chaos flocking overhead,a swirling cloud,un-assured dreams.
Dust lifts off the 16-year-old dog, you pat the spacebread nearly baked fills
I hold my ownknees and hope you hear what I haven’t saidwhile wondering what wanting looks like
You say, “To say itsimply.â€
I sit on the countertopand [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
Somewhere between tragic and heartbreakingthere is light
down the second avenue tunnela boy sits organizing papersbeside two mentopless, passed outhalf alive or deadwe rush by.
Above ground two give free newspapers we refuse,though those two smilein the rain.
The avenue smells of garbage, restaurant remnants,late nights begetting early mornings.
A man ties his tie as he [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
I thoughtit was a part of growing up,drinking coffeewithout milk
Turns out,it happenswhen you don’t have milkweek after week—
I know, stop right there,don’t even bother to tell meI know, I know, you just forgot.
And maybe you started to thinkthe corner store, so close, but yetnot worth your timeor energy.
You tell me there is valuein simply sipping [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
“We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.â€- Barack Obama
I am worried for youin a way I can no longer affordto worry for myself—knowing the limits of my own hopefulnessthe ways I canpick myself up,
the [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
I ate your chocolate on the way homeawaiting canned laughteronly you could make realby sideways glances.
I am goodat the wrong things,embarrassed for not knowing better about happiness.
We are each other’s inflections. “I knew I was happy then but looking back, I wasn’t.â€And you who was,retort “I never knew.â€
If only we could combine these,lay [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
Along First Avenuehouses line upbetween what was and what isboarded up windowsmust lie in mere frameswhere within light once streamed.
Traversing distancein exponential leavescommuters face the inexplicableblocks of outlines compiled.Fracturing venom and phloem backstacked apartments.Our supposed to senses distribute neural notionsSelf-creating disconnectionsin search of wonder only alonein unknowing.
And yet I want to tell youthat this morning [...]