• Recently Published

    • A Parisian Affair by Kevin Wranovix
      Inspiration is a foggy fellow, emerging from nothing, dissipating into nothing, answering to nothing.
    • Our Theseus by Nathan Jefferson
      Last week he was a dishwasher who his coworkers called Ricky. Today he’s a day laborer named Eddie, clearing a pair of fallen trees off a new build’s lawn and fixing up a large garden. Rotting plank ripped out, new plank inserted.
    • Robbing the Pillars by Marie Goyette
      Ruth stood on the narrow iron bridge, gripping her father’s obsidian necklace, and wondered how many years it would take before the river wore them both down to nothing.
    • The Call by Eben E. B. Bein
      I hungered into that quiet until— there—unbelievable!— a wolf spider scuttled onto a leaf.
    • Saturation by Claire Oleson
      I no longer harangue every desk nurse at every hospital for a taxonomic breakdown of her bills. I don’t ask for the numbers of the Benadryl, the water cups, the abdominal touches done with gloved hands. I am the most American I’ve ever been—she costs what she costs and I eat it.

I Was Not a Tender Lover by Michelle Hulan

September 18, 2022
Reading Time: 1 Minutes

I swallowed air more than I breathed it. Took space

more than I held it. He said I’d die

ten times and still rise a woman made of bees

swarming chrysanthemums, dragging dust

between worlds. I said he lassoed meaning

in a house of mirrors, pushing his hands

through glass to find memory, grabbing

my shoulders, which have a history of shrugging.

I clutched the crests of my stomach, and he reminded me

I was not soft. I took my knuckles

to his lips. Called them hissing mollusks

in the sand. At dawn, he said most of me was the tongue

of a bell clanging against copper until only what echoed

remained. I said the rest was light.

Share

Poetry

Hulan, Michelle
Michelle Hulan (she/her) is a poet and writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Chestnut Review, Poet Lore, Sundog Lit, RHINO, and elsewhere. She received her MA in English from the University of Ottawa and lives in Brooklyn with her family. Follow her on Twitter @michellehulan.

Read More by Hulan, Michelle:


You might also like

Caught by Chris Bullard
November 19, 2024
Second Winter Solstice During an Epidemic by Marianne Worthington
September 26, 2024
Beautiful Generative Machine by David Fowler
September 17, 2024