Hagiography of the Woman Next Door

Pink bonnet atop flat twists
giving up to gray

American Spirit
between her teeth

Steamed-yucca robe
over crushed-Vicodin

skin over goose-quill
bone becoming corkwood

three years before
her broken hip

and so much blood
the sidewalk like hopscotch

like fairy tales
like don’t-walk-

on-the-graves-of-the-dead
But today

but yesterday
knees bent over the stoop

ants teething at her ankles
she blesses them

and even the trees
smell like sex

Tim Stobierski writes about relationships. His work explores themes of love, lust, longing, and loss — presented through the lens of his own experiences as a queer man. His poetry has been published in a number of journals, including Chiron Review, Gay & Lesbian Review, Midwest Quarterly, Anthropocene, Dust, and Connecticut River Review. His first book of poems, Dancehall, was published by Antrim House Books in July 2023.