EMILY KENDAL FREY

JAMAICA PLAIN, MA

I’m aiming for more if —> then trajectories
Then I can be a tangerine and still sit in this bed
It becomes less a matter of differentiating myself from my hope
She sat erectly on the barstool when we met to talk about it
He and I fought late into the night
I fed him leftover lasagna
Heated in my toaster oven

28th & BURNSIDE

I was looking in the window of this new vintage place.
A car pulled up behind me and honked.
I turned around and waved but we didn’t know each other.
Aqua bird-shaped salt and pepper shakers.
I want to have romantic feelings.
Also, a lot of sex.

ART

Awkward paintings of mountain and deer.
A little blood.
Twitching of the exaggerated mouth.
Please, someone recognize me.

REQUIREMENT

I was doing this new thing.
Get in the cab! he said.
There wasn’t a reason for it.
My head was antlers or some other symbol of grief.

SOLSTICE

Pines thick and soft as liver
Sky a tourniquet

Rinsed of birds
Sun hits

Shore the lodged
Algae angry

I walk the lake
Until my feet

Are not feet
My feet are eye

Sockets I walk
on my memory-

less face

Emily Kendal Frey is the author of AIRPORT (Blue Hour Press 2009). Recent work is forthcoming in Notnostrums, The Benefactor, Laurel Review, Zero Ducats, and Or. TEAM SAD, a collaboration with Zach Schomburg will be out from Cinematheque Press this month.