local_library It Hurts To Not Be What I Am

by Ginna Richardson Luck

Published in Issue No. 275 ~ April, 2020

I live in an orphan vessel I freeze to death in a flimsy theater again in the box bitten by strange and anxious winks I have tiny blood I hush up in the scared bucket the cold the heat I’m on my knees stamped into plastic looks I am not in the sure I don’t even know what I know (this too is work) I have many empty stings I die a little on language the part that is bearable is also false my origin shoulder punishes me I swamp in the acid of yesterday pull at the edges until I see blood stand knee-deep in useless soul leaves I tongue shock quiet punch tenderness slam on toward love what could burst could be anything I cannot body future I cannot flesh it up

 

 

 

 

The featured photograph is titled “I Can’t Seem to Wake Up,” curtesy by a Wisconsin based artist JJ D’Onofrio.

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Ginna Luck’s poems have appeared in Radar Poetry, Gone Lawn, Hermeneutic Chaos Journal, Rust + Moth, Leveler Poetry, Up The Staircase Quarterly, and others. She has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes. She received her MFA from Goddard College. Her first full-length collection, Everything Has Been Asking for Mercy, was published by Finishing Line Press.