Over and over
our thin necks
hang the likeness
of your unfilled
body
We’ve known you for so long
We just want
to get closer
Call us flimsy cheap
when you discard us
in your
seasonal raids
toss us
back
to the dry cleaners
Yet open the closet door
there are even more of us
Those plastic or wooden
others
with their sturdy bones
can’t keep up
Our slender shoulders are your shoulders
We grow tender
just having you near
The weight of you
is moth
light
Besides writing, KATE PEPER loves to paint watercolors, garden obsessively and walk with her husband and semi-feral dog, Hannah, in Northern California. Her chapbook, Dipped In Black Water, won the New Women’s Voices Award from Finishing Line Press, 2016 and her poems can be found in The American Journal of Poetry, Baltimore Review, Cimarron Review, Potomac Review, Rattle, Tar River Review and others.
ANN CALANDRO is a writer, mixed media collage artist, and classical piano student. Her fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have been published in print and online literary journals and included in two print anthologies. Her artwork has been published in print and online journals, exhibited in galleries, and awarded prizes. See more artwork at www.anncalandro.webs.com.
