Second Story
by Halee Kirkwood
The first lesbians I ever met
lived above us in the duplex
where we failed to escape our father
that midas, how everything
he touched turned to crack & his fingers a fuse
& I never saw them but once
playing with a dog happy
not to run or chase or hunt
my street all shadow, heart a firecracker.
She asked if I wanted
to feed the dog a treat
& I couldn’t say the breed
or size, happy enough
to pet a dog at all
& hear someone say
that I was a good girl
feeling not so good
the year Michael Jackson
sat in trial & everyone said
it’s obvious he’s gay
gay meaning guilty
me a guilty girl
talking to strangers
and petting strange dogs
then time was a breath kicked
out of my belly and I
became myself
a lesbian living
in the second story of a duplex
this second story without a garden or a dog
just a staircase to sweep
on the sunny weekends, plants to water,
soup to brew,
someone to love and recycling to sort.
lived above us in the duplex
where we failed to escape our father
that midas, how everything
he touched turned to crack & his fingers a fuse
& I never saw them but once
playing with a dog happy
not to run or chase or hunt
my street all shadow, heart a firecracker.
She asked if I wanted
to feed the dog a treat
& I couldn’t say the breed
or size, happy enough
to pet a dog at all
& hear someone say
that I was a good girl
feeling not so good
the year Michael Jackson
sat in trial & everyone said
it’s obvious he’s gay
gay meaning guilty
me a guilty girl
talking to strangers
and petting strange dogs
then time was a breath kicked
out of my belly and I
became myself
a lesbian living
in the second story of a duplex
this second story without a garden or a dog
just a staircase to sweep
on the sunny weekends, plants to water,
soup to brew,
someone to love and recycling to sort.
Halee Kirkwood is a descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, a MFA candidate at Hamline University, and a mentor for the Minnesota Prison Writing Project. Kirkwood has poetry published or forthcoming in Pinwheel Journal, Grimoire Magazine, Cream City Review, and others. Kirkwood was selected as a 2019 Teaching Fellow for the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writing Conference at Arizona State University.
Read more...
Winter 2019
"Fugue For Rabbits When The Tundra Turns Pink" by Halee Kirkwood
Read more...
Winter 2019
"Fugue For Rabbits When The Tundra Turns Pink" by Halee Kirkwood
