Alice Hall
IN SOME ALIEN PRAIRIE
the birds don’t circle the ways they do here…….collected in one
large cloud……a blanket of ‘of’ …….there’s no following
in backwards time…no picking back up or undoing…..the glass
hardens almost immediate…the soft bubble at the tip smoothed
to hard nub….the sound of liquid in yr straw….….a suck bitten
between handful of teeth…. it thinks of things which need
splitting…..division….via money…….via labor….…. via you’re
too stupid…………look….how pretty….….i’ve become..in yr
absence……..look how you’re faking just look….you’ve peed
yrself all over N –– J ––– Transit,….you’ve lost….yr flip flops in
old bridge & now we’re getting kicked off the train b/c,  well,
b/c i’ve sworn off swearing  sworn off being a woman yelling
instead i’ll be a reliquary….….so how about……..you give me yr
xbox?……yes, it was me….yr bungled up boyfriend….…come to
sew all the patches on yr clothes
…………………………………………………& come to split the field in two
Alice Hall is poet living and working in Buffalo, NY, where she is pursuing a PhD in the Poetics Program at SUNY Buffalo. Previously, she taught poetry and writing in Portland, Oregon. Her poems are published or forthcoming in Prelude, Dream Pop, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbook One Million Nude Women (Industrial Lunch.)
Image credit:Â Michael Jin on Unsplash
Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #28.
