in the beginning he tenderly kissed my forehead
                in                                      my       head
 i         beg                                               for          
ten        
              inning                       s                      a
tender   
end      

 

 

 

 

 

at a theater with friends I stand alone and barely speak
                            it       ends                on   a     bare      peak       
                      friends                               are         
at    the                                                       bar               
                                 I                               rely     
                          on    
      heat                                             and                    
       eat                             a      lone                     pea

 

 

 

 

Mag Gabbert is the author of the forthcoming collection SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS (Mad Creek Books, 2023), winner of the 2021 The Journal Charles B. Wheeler Prize in Poetry, and the chapbook Minml Poems (Cooper Dillon Books, 2020). Her work can also be found in 32 Poems, Pleiades, The Paris Review Daily, The Massachusetts Review, Waxwing, and elsewhere. Mag has a PhD from Texas Tech University and an MFA from The University of California at Riverside; she’s received poetry fellowships from Idyllwild Arts and Poetry at Round Top; and, in 2021, she was awarded a 92Y Discovery Award. She teaches at Southern Methodist University and serves as the interviews editor for Underblong Journal.