My daughter calls from upstate where they sell gray gourds.

She says things are happening too fast, says we’re fucked.

 
She says the whole curse word

                                                            and the whole world is cursed.

 
Perhaps I am wearing a metal mesh veil soldered onto my face.

Perhaps I am wearing a gown of iron bees.

 
Trying not to rust out in this rain, I pull Wellingtons—

those ridiculous loden green boots—up past my knees.

 
Prince died not long ago: his symbol was made of swords

like a sign the Angel leaves after he massages sore tendons.

 
But what a dark year we’ve been through already. What a house

we live in now.

Jennifer Martelli’s debut poetry collection, The Uncanny Valley, was published in 2016 by Big Table Publishing Company. She is also the author of After Bird from Grey Book Press. Her work has appeared in Thrush, [Pank], Glass Poetry Journal, Cleaver, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal. Jennifer Martelli has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net Prizes and is the recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant in Poetry. She is the co-curator for The Mom Egg VOX Folio.