Thick From Thick

the towns i loved and used to know nostalgically
defined by the girls i hate blew onto my nose

so many chicklet houses like stacked blown-over
and outlined-black boxes

including my bosnian heritage

as the wind separates
material from material, thick from thick

ew i almost said sorting

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It Is Likely/I Had Long Ago

if i have ever been an oath breaker, it is likely
i had long ago / incarnated as that waifer

pray thee my father Eric
shook the farthest drape porous or else arrested hearts will rot
just from its heat

do it now

i’m flexing my praying skeleton tattoo
as i ride

praying cookieboy cookieboy cookieboy

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God Had Meandered But Then Fucked

hey mice, might

continuous platinum churning
by the datum-chrome stove, the miniature stove

i look up random high-sounding definitions when i am bored

slow-knitting burnt hair with a fanged detachment
as if a well-paid god had meandered
but then fucked the life from out of me

i do like it

co-engineering items like that

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Listen the poet read [Three Poems] from So Neon Was the Rope

 

 

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Elise Houcek is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Notre Dame. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Prelude, Posit, Afternoon Visitor, Always Crashing, Action Books Blog, and elsewhere. She writes and makes house music in South Bend, Indiana.