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So Well Deserved
by Emily Pérez

Who gets to be beautiful and who
            gets an easy body. Who moves
pain free. What are things
            that don’t haunt me: hands, feet, 
paychecks, a flotation device.
                        Who gets spades
            who gets pebbles. Who chews mint
and who chews marbles. Who gets baskets
            and droves and troves of options. 
Who holds swarms or storms. Who married
            misery. Who kept certainty 
of a sad life in a skirt pocket, who
            wore skirts with pockets, had letters
from past lovers in hand, who
            wanted to hold one orb of herself 
aloft as long as possible, keeping it 
            free from contaminants, moods. 
                                    Who got screwed. 
                        Who screwed 
up. Who loosed the screws
            sang songs about herself. 
​


Emily Pérez is the author of What Flies Want, winner of the Iowa Prize; House of Sugar, House of Stone; and two chapbooks. She co-edited the anthology The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood. A CantoMundo fellow and Ledbury Critic, she’s received support from Hedgebrook, Bread Loaf, The Community of Writers, and others. She teaches high school in Denver, where she lives with her family. Find more at www.emilyperez.org.

ISSN 2157-8079
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