Poetry, Toma Zbrizher
I always come back to make the same mistake;
the future is the past in a different dress
Coco said, take one thing off and I get completely naked
When I took off, I took longing off too
Alone again, my body my body again
Not adorned in dresses or dressed in adoring fingers
Just (adorable) sweat and dirty hair
I was taught to remember it pink all lipstick, all pelvis
drunk on desire, thrust toward something beyond the tangible
what sticks to memory’s skin are fingers like sweat-soaked spandex
fumbling for something inside me they would never trigger
No haut salvation in here No sweetheart, sweetheart
Just a starving dog sucking at its own tail cuz it tastes safer
than anything it's been served from man’s palm
Toma Zbrizher is a Ukrainian-born, American poet. Her work has appeared most recently in Limp Wrist Journal, Soup Can Magazine, Event, Grist, and others. Zbrizher was the recipient of the NJ Poets Prize in 2021 and a finalist for the Glitter Bomb Award, judged by Dorianne Laux. Her first collection of poems, Tell Me Something Good, was published by Get Fresh Books in 2019. She lives in New Jersey with her son, a hamster and a very talkative black cat.