& now I’m google searching something like
good songs to recommend for someone trying to kick
heroin & clearing the oldest iPhone I have, deleting
my past life photo by photo, stopping at the one you sent me
when you had your first baby & I was at the Kimmel
listening to a live jazz band with Alex, & your son,
he was all tubes & wrinkled, so I kept the picture
to myself. he will be three in April & it feels like he should be
younger. the internet keeps recommending the same song,
some same stale drama, so I play it once, again,
but it’s all puppets
with their strings visible, like,
we’re on two street & you’re
pulling on my pocket & you’re asking
for the flask & I don’t even remember telling you
that I brought one.
my dad’s dad hated the mummers.
he called them feather merchants.
everything feels like giving up.
let’s steal a rifle & pick off the next
& then the next planet’s moons one by one
until we’re even, until it’s simple or simple again.
I really thought we had a chance this time.
I just had that feeling—you know?
Kimberly Ann Southwick is from Cherry Hill, New Jersey and currently an Assistant Professor at Jacksonville State University. She is the founder and Editor in Chief of the literary journal Gigantic Sequins. Her full-length poetry collection, Orchid Alpha, is forthcoming from Trembling Pillow Press. Find her on twitter tweeting about being a Philadelphia Eagles fan: @kimannjosouth.