For All to See

A poem from "Raw to the Touch"

Photo by Dan Counsell on Unsplash

For All to See

I don’t write poems at sidewalk cafes

exhaling swirls of youth into the ethers

I write poems on the toilet with the

door cracked

I write poems while my son

devours screen time

I write poems on my phone as a

cool cashier trains a new hire

methodically and slow

I write poems with the window open

for all the neighbors to see

I write poems with one ear

listening for the end of the show

a tune that tells me to

set my sights aside

and parent again with a paring knife

I write poems like making out with

boys in the back of a movie theater

my life reel playing in the background

I let words slip their soft teenaged

fingers down my top

I still don’t know how that

movie ends

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This poem was originally published in Black Coffee Review in 2023.

It also appears in the chapbook, Raw to the Touch.