by Marina Carreira

sometimes the bird sometimes the

hunter sometimes both




 

I.

Forgive me for that left hook,
for that shot below the belt I didn’t mean
what I said and if I did, I probably shouldn’t
Be wary of me, but know my neurons
have always been woodpeckers My heart
line a river of seedy tributaries 

II. 

You are so good at never being wrong;
an ace at making me 2007 Britney and when I grab
the reigns of Something You Can’t Control,
I dream of biting the thumb of the Okay emoji
you passive aggressively text. This is normal
my therapist says. Great, we’re so normal, I chirp. 

III. 

One day we will make it through one week
without a trigger (what’s for dinner) or
a subtweet (look how full  the moon is).
We will drive down 78  after the fight,
in the rearview will be an open lane, will be
resentment in the form of 1000 singing crows.

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Marina Carreira is a queer Luso-American writer and artist from Newark, NJ. Her first full-length poetry collection, Save the Bathwater, was published last year by Get Fresh Books. She is founding member of “Brick City Collective,” a Newark-based multicultural, multimedia group working for social change through the arts.