In the ’90s, eucharist-faced Kurt Cobain,
always wincing, close to tears. A whistling
sound that followed. In this decade, whatever
the kids will call it, hand-puppet vaginas & dad
making waves in the pawn shop. Me wishing
I had somehow gotten closer to Bea Arthur.
The members of my online poetry workshop
gear up to discuss sexual assaults of yore
and this week’s pantoum about which songs
on ye olde mixtapes double as oleander
reminders. We know a woman rarely plans
her last supper, so I wield em-dash machetes
to hold them at arm’s length. My mother’s fibrous
legacy swelters inside the crumpled brown paper
bag of my body, her last distressed thoughts melting
pigment in my bloodstream, which keeps moist
my cloying cheese danish heart
Nicole Steinberg is the author of Glass Actress (Furniture Press Books 2017), Getting Lucky (Spooky Girlfriend Press 2013), and several chapbooks, including Fat Dreams (Barrelhouse 2018). Her work has been featured or reviewed in the New York Times, Newsweek, Flavorwire, Bitch, and Hyperallergic, and her poetry was selected by Penn State’s Pennsylvania Center for the Book for the 2016 Public Poetry Project poster series. She’s the founder of New York’s EARSHOT reading series and she lives in Philadelphia. Find her online at nicolesteinberg.net.
Image: Destinee Dearbeck
Pine Hills Review 