G-NT3806KSJP
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Sweat


   


That I was a small bare animal
in the animal sweating much that
shadows spored that I flipped
outspored and slippy that that
bid outbid the other bird I was
and wasn't met in rain that wed
me to a birch that bitch that
spurn and topple less care for
the fret the lather that vetiver
married me to its char that I was
married and was sweating that


Anne Marie Rooney is the author of No Beautiful (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2018) and Spitshine (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2012). Her poetry has been twice featured in the Best American Poetry anthology, and has been the recipient of the Iowa Review Award, the Gulf Coast Poetry Prize, and others. She lives in Baltimore.