by Sonia Greenfield

I remove all underwires from my bras
then bend them into hearts and moons
use them like rebar for miniature cities
made from common household items
such as regret or pluck or as a key
for the lock to enter the door
to invisibility and yes my breasts
are still proud but ghostly tits under
a ghostly shroud how they haunt
the dreams of every ex-lover under
the cover of this sheath I walk
among you and buy pants with
elastic waistbands until everything
expands my soft belly the reach
of my life stretched before me
to a shore still too far for the eye
to see in the drugstore mirror
I spot silver in my hair like a seam
of precious ore running through
this crown of unearthly brown except
no one sees it but me because of my
(dare I say?) delicious anonymity I could
blow in the ear of a man under forty
and he would only hear a stirring
breeze I could try to catch his eye
but his glance bounces off or skitters
by some say Harry Potter’s magic
cloak was made from the skin
of a woman past her prime it’s my
time to shine as a white glow moves
through the orchard after dark until
a chill tickles the nape of your neck
and yes you could bounce a quarter
off this ass but I am passed have
The Cure sing of my demise or crank
some Gen X anthem to senora
ephemera taking up space between
the rain play haunting music
for madam phantom seen
through as a windowpane.

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Sonia Greenfield is the author of two full-length collections of poetry. Letdown, released in March, was selected for the 2020 Marie Alexander Series and published by White Pine Press. Her collection, Boy With a Halo at the Farmer's Market, won the 2014 Codhill Poetry Prize and was published in 2015. Her chapbook, American Parable, won the 2017 Autumn House Press/Coal Hill Review chapbook prize. She lives in Minneapolis where she teaches at Normandale College and edits the Rise Up Review.

by Sonia Greenfield

In that each day I cycle through
my textures—waking as flannel

until I apply espresso so I become
tweed which wears to a kind

of threadbare satin until I apply
one bourbon at bedtime and become

flannel again. Sometimes the rocks
glasses build up on the nightstand

because I am addicted to always
thinking about something else

besides what needs to be done.
And when I say I have named

our puppy Benzo, it is short for
Diazepine, because I know pills

can cover for me as if I were
a crazed canary in a cage and they

were the black curtain to calm me.
And I won’t pick the poppies

that grow overdoses because
I know the nausea that follows

such easy pleasure. I am addicted
to the way loneliness is being

surrounded by all manner of people
I want to kiss but can never

figure out how to talk to and to
the pings of social media where

I don't have to be clever on cue.
Mostly, though, I am addicted

to being in this body, to taking
care, and I know this will kill me,

but no faster or slower
than the average dying.

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Sonia Greenfield was born and raised in Peekskill, New York, and her book, Boy with a Halo at the Farmer's Market, won the 2014 Codhill Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in a variety of places, including in 2010 Best American Poetry, The Antioch Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, The Los Angeles Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Willow Springs. She lives with her husband and son in Hollywood where she edits the Rise Up Review and co-directs the Southern California Poetry Festival.