By Rebecca Martin
It’s different this time.
You set Whitman, Dickinson,
Dunbar aside and, lonely
for literature, you bend
your mind toward younger
writers: these nine
in the desks right now. Try
a sonnet, you say. Blackout
or where I’m from. Switch
the houses for objects, towns
for feelings, place for color.
Watch your history
refract before you. Now
try second person.
Rebecca D. Martin lives in Central Virginia with her husband and two children. Her work has been published in the Curator, the Brevity blog, Isele, and Susurrus, among others. She can be found at https://rebeccadmartin.substack.com/, where she talks about her favorite things, including poetry, books, and neurodiversity.
