29 September 2009 | Vol. 9, No. 3
Contextualizing the Situation Is Not Always a Valid Solution.
i.
Because they threw sand in his eyes.
ii.
Read your hand in the mirror:
this is your only chance
to be the victim.
iii.
Pull the thread, watch it snap
and coil back into your hem
like water snakes
(like intestines)
iv.
The man who peeled his baby
for breakfast looks closely
at the grapefruit sections:
bitter skin, incarnadine blisters,
little ovaries.
v.
Dirt under my fingernails—
I've been splitting earthworms again.
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About the author:
Lindsey Wallace is currently a first-year MFA student in poetry at the University of Montana in Missoula. She is a two-time recipient of the Nettleton/Hirsch Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared in Words and Images and on Rachel Zucker and Arielle Greenberg's Starting Today: 100 Poems for 100 Days blog, which will be published in anthology form in 2010.
For further reading:
Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 9, No. 3, where "Contextualizing the Situation Is Not Always a Valid Solution." ran on September 29, 2009. List other work with these same labels: poetry.
