I mean I am absolutely the speaker of my poems.
I mean I will unzip the tight casing and let the sausage
of my body fall out all over your breakfast plate. I mean it has
been a long day of being alive and I have taken
my bra off in the least sexy way possible. When I say
I am not the speaker of my poems
I mean I will tell you every embarrassing story
that has ever happened to me. Like how in
sixth grade I took that Seventeen magazine
quiz and found out how to be a lady
in the streets and a freak
in the sheets and how
the boy I liked rejected me on
submarine pizza day and yes
my heart did sink and when I say
I am not the speaker of my poems I mean that I care
more than I should and sometimes I
am the wheel and sometimes the hamster
running desperately out of my cage.
When I say I am not the speaker of my poems
I mean I am a Halloween decoration
that has been left out too long and has now been
made to be merry. When I say I am not the speaker of my poems
I mean that I am three small forest creatures walking into
your party in a trench coat. I mean I am a Jell-o mold
floating in a sea of jellyfish I mean that I am not the three-tier
lily-white wedding cake that you can rent for photos but the sheet cake
behind the bar that is ready to do what is asked of it. When I say I am not
the speaker of my poems I mean that I am the mall Santa
smoking cigarettes on my lunch break, I mean I am the one who will tell you
what you want to hear. What do you want to hear? I’ll cut every
emotion out of construction paper and hang it in your craft room.
When I say I am not the speaker of my poems I mean that I am
a celebrity looking at myself in a wax museum unsure
of which one of us deserves to be loved.

(winner of the Editors’ Prize in Poetry for issue 40)