By Amy Simone Piller
You suggestthat we order our booksby color,and level by levelof packing tape,we undothe semblance of orderwe had.
Where once there were authorsthere is now joywe think.
My father smilescondescendingly while your mother askshow we’ll find our books.
They worry overthe browningof the palette,the potentialcomplicationof splitting lightinto its components.
How beautiful I thinkin the morning.
By Amy Simone Piller
“I can neither confirm nor denyanything about A.C.S.â€
Please don’t leave a suicidal child unattended.If they’re homicidal let them run. Ha ha. Silence.
If there is a fire in the buildingor a bombon the L trainyou will be directed to do certain things—shut your doors—the intercom system does workafter allin certain rooms. We’re [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
At the end of the dayI want youto be everythingI need
Which includes a hug, a reassuring look, a confidence, an awe, affection and an orgasm. I want this all at oncea taste of wine disaggregatedaptly swished, sniffed and sipped.
This concoction would surelyinclude umami and sweetgone together wrongrushedlike cold mashed potatoesunwarmedeaten for hunger.
I’m sorryfor spitting [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
I read him a poem and he said“You read your poemslike youhate yourself.â€I turned red.
I read youa poemand you said“Read it again.â€I turned pinkand read it again.“Again,†you said,again.
By Amy Simone Piller
You often forget your book bagand I’m too slow to realizethere are reasons.
But afterschool the other dayyou shyly asked me if I ever watched you playbasketball.
I smiled and said I didthrough the window by my deskyou run, pass and driveharder than you fidget in herewhere I asked again for you to writeabout the events [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
I am moving.
My stepmother’s exercise weights do not fit.I leave them unpacked.(I’ll find room for themsomewhere, somehow.)
Suddenly I am standing — the corner, you and your friends13 and cliquey.I am happy to see youthis is just like classexcept we’re on the streetsand you’re excited to see me.You write hurriedly on chart paperI pull from my [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
Time was synchronizedin the Garden of Eden I think,as you pluraltell meit is timefor dismissal.
Universal three pmand other costsof the knowledge tree accrue, (the modern mind has not been kindto absolutes,devouring measly crumbsas sustenance for propulsion). I should throw the clockacross the classroomsmash your watchmake a sceneshow you what it means—what what means?What does [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
Swallowed a cherry pit,felt happily alone,when I giggled at the back of classabout what wombs can grow.
The professor rambled onabout the history of dissent,why we need criticism,and what I should have readby nowmaybe he forgot how it feels to go out on your ownthe magic of the world and wordsmixed up and unknown.
Maybe it’s as [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
Togethering againthe chaos of days unglued,months spun by,compiled newspapers piling highwith things that happenedand receipted things I didor spentor spent time with.
Exhaustion comeswhen it has been a whilesince sleep, up fighting the long losing battle mind mine of minesleeplessness fixing all that is tense,for a world insisting on rarely making any sense.
But tonight when [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
On the subway hometwo boys run into a girlthey once knew, on the train. One says“Ask her if she broke up with Kevin!â€(And they do). She says she has and they ask whyand she shrugs a sighand boy one asksif it was another girland boy two, if her sisterhad to do with itand she looks [...]