I can't tolerate daylight, so I slip into the dim of kids'
bedrooms at night, adorned with necklaces made of
baby teeth. The color white makes me retch. I'd like
to resign, become something other than a fang
collector. I can fly, but only as a limp, boneless ghost,
a spectral jellyfish with floating skirts, a marble quarry
whirlwind. I smell of chalk dust, old dental records,
ossuaries, loss, and skeletons cleaned of meat. My
breath is a whiff of extinction. I have eyes like
mustard seeds. No, I'm not pretty. To reach your
world of porcelain drinking fountains and molar-
rotting caramels, I navigate a long, winding tunnel
each evening, parts of which are dark, and parts
of which are the hurt pink of a sore throat.
Previously published on Literary Matters. From Index of Women (Penguin Books, forthcoming spring 2021). Used with permission of the author.
Amy Gerstler is a writer of poetry, nonfiction and journalism who lives in Los Angeles. She is the author of ten previous poetry collections, including Bitter Angel, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Crown of Weeds, which won a California Book Award. Her most recent collection, Scattered at Sea (2015), was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, and several volumes of Best American Poetry. She teaches in the graduate fine arts department at Art Center, College of Design, in Pasadena, California, and is a member of the core faculty of the Bennington Writing Seminars MFA program at Bennington College in Vermont.
SWWIM Every Day is proud to present poems by women-identifying poets appearing at Miami Dade College’s 2020 Miami Book Fair.
Miami Dade College’s 2020 Miami Book Fair will host over 200+ authors from all over the world in conversation, in readings, in storytelling, all virtual, all safe, all unique, and all FREE between Nov. 15-22. Reading from their new work will be Diane Louie, Nikky Finney, Heid Erdrich, Jane Hirshfield, Danez Smith, Kazim Ali, John Murillo, Jen Karetnick, Jorie Graham, Kevin Young, among many others. And in conversation with Miami’s own Campbell McGrath will be these poets laureate: Robert Hass, Juan Felipe Herrera, Joy Harjo, among others. Access to Miami Book Fair 2020 is free. For more information and to register please visit MiamiBookFaironline.com. Follow Miami Book Fair @miamibookfair, #MiamiBookFair2020 #MBF2020 #MiamiBookFairOnline.
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