
Two Poems by Sarah Bates
I remember myself in parts. November
morning without snow. Dusty footprints,
no brakes. I remember nothing.
I remember myself in parts. November
morning without snow. Dusty footprints,
no brakes. I remember nothing.
If Your Family Owned a Mausoleum, then This Poem Would Make More Sense Your sisters have found corpses: beautiful one in the bath, the
Animul/Flame Animul owned the sun that beat the back of the gavel-nosed deer. Around us, sweetbread mountains with their anatomical stone stone stone. I
My mother said, my hair was like a rat’s nest, a rat’s nest plucked by a black capped chickadee for another nest or the start
Body Composition You wanted me to make you art, capture the way you breathe stars from the sky, disappear into the folds of my
Primitive Now you want to make her faceless fling the greedy spit of acid splatter domination through iris and cornea gouge socket and cartilage
ON NIGHTS WHEN I AM MOTHERLESS Through the limbs of an ash tree, ash filters, reminds me of the nights we watched the storm
Amputee The first time I witnessed my son’s boner, I gasped, then pretended not to see it, proceeded to help him into Spiderman underpants
SALLY RIDE WATCHES THE CHALLENGER EXPLODE I know what it is to be boxed in hot light, ushered into more darkness, pinpricked by the