Patty Nash 

Preoccupied like a bug 


With past wrongdoings


Sofia cuts her hair


With rusted scissors


Jagging a line


Near her delicate corneas


As I’m getting mayonnaise


Massaged into my scalp


Or I did


Hoping to gross


Out the lice


I’ll spoil you, it


Was futile, though


Even now I can smell it


Like burnt toast


The psychic alluded to


In the formative scene


It’s frozen and buttered


And atop of that, salted


Like a large precious mineral


I could lick from a wall


If you gave me 20 dollars


And even if you didn’t


I’ve no compunction


Barely even periods


Throughout much of history


Instead a platonic


Saltine need


For a single grain


Of milk rice in the shaker


My mother made me


When I was ill


Which I am not


Now though the line


Between wellness


And its opposite


Gets fungible


Easier to like


Luxury velveteen


Recliners in the theater


Making audible breaths


Then halting them


Or watching an antecedent


Device nostalgics


Like lighting


Like torches


You could decorate your yard


Or get at Home Depot


With while doing it


What with the medial


Circumlocution around it


Its shift to the next thing


What fireworks sound like


Their connotations


I free my location


For fifteen minutes


Hope I’m encrypted


Directly following that


A blue-eyed avatar with a laptop


Pursuing her caffeinated friend


Who lifts his pinkie


Like I do on my bow


Which I shouldn’t


Do as I’m no


Baroque violinist


Without my vibrato


Though I prefer it


It makes everything


Emphatic and just


Goes to show


Everything I know


Informs me like a wellspring


A big, hollow gulch


I close my eyes and picture


In an act of self-soothing


Not believing in it


Or for that matter


Anything at all

Patty Nash is a poet. Her work has been published in DIAGRAM, Sixth Finch, Annulet, and elsewhere. More information at patty-nash.com.