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to every other word


   


Peeling off the sheetrock helped to combat the images seen in my head: flashes of the body I dreamed bellied up in the river. Memory, a cold door knob inside the self. Loose as a nest of firecrackers. We couldn’t leave if we wanted to. Take a bite out of my rib cage, toss a few back. Take too much sinus medication & watch documentaries, the love that goes with it wears it out. Try this for control of black, spot, mildew and rust. It takes courage to pass over the guardrail, to write this poem dedicated to the pine near the trailer park. How murky her soul was when she left the county. Now to lay ridden, trying to live forever in inevitable patterns of narrative.





Evan Gray is from Jefferson, North Carolina. He is the author of three chapbooks of poetry: Blindspot (the Rest (Garden-Door Press 2017); Body Birth (Above/Ground Press, 2019); Dusk Melody (Shirt-Pocket Press 2019). His essays and work have been featured in Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, and others. Currently, he is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Appalachian State University.