HARK
Last night, Stevie said, enjoy entering the void of sleep. We had come home from the bar. Home.
Have you ever, suddenly, remembered a dream?
Last night, Stevie and I went to see a film.
In the film, the boy has a dream that he throws a spear at the bird, and the bird snaps
the spear with its beak.
The boy wakes up, the spear still intact.
But when he tries to touch it, it breaks like a dream.
HARK
As a child, I write. As a child my uncle was scared
of spiders, so he stepped on one in the garage.
But instead of killing it, a hundred tiny spiders
poured out, as if they were dancing from
a wound.
HARK
The marker bleeds through the page. But this bleeding is not
red. It’s when you can see through the present to the past.
HARK
We cut up a box that says FRAGILE, write our demands in dark green marker
Blood comes out
I silence it
I find myself rooted on the floor
The word cyst comes from the Greek for pouch, a place where mothers carry young
I see the cars and wonder where they are going that is more important than this
Then I get in my car and I join them
HARK
Poetry is when death is replaced with purpose
The tree has a fungal infection, so it is beautiful and slowly dying
Last night I made orzo with sun-dried tomatoes, then I did not sleep
I need to go upstairs and put my orzo in the fridge
I cannot do this
I need to punt the Catholic out of me
grace (ge) gilbert (they/them) is a poet, writer and collage artist. they received their MFA in poetry from the University of Pittsburgh in 2022, where they now teach. they are the author of Holly (YesYes Books, 2026), a hybrid image and text book about the 1976 murder of their paternal grandmother, as well as three chapbooks: the closeted diaries: essays (Porkbelly Press, 2022), NOTIFICATIONS IN THE DARK (Antenna Books, 2023) and today is an unholy suite (Barrelhouse, 2024). their work can be found in 2023's Best of the Net Anthology, the Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, Adroit and elsewhere. They teach hybrid collage and poetics courses at Brooklyn Poets, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, and other institutions. They were a 2025 Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writer's Conference.