by Emily O’Neill (Art by bill Wolak)
Another one who built me slammed the door
on his way out & since I’m missing
the wake, I’m ruing you too—artful
dodger of earnest moments.
Did you ever meet a funeral
you couldn’t shrug off? You’re a cat
prince, smudging shoes
for the next editorial. You push
a vase over the counter’s edge & watch
me instead of the shattering glass. Design means
money in the bank but money tunnels
through a person, then falls
out the other side. Same as cancer
turns anyone Halloween pale.
Bones the first thing you register.
Do you notice what a waste it is
chasing down checks? Exhaustion is ruthless.
It steals back every kiss
sewing us to our shadows. I hope to heal
past loss, but instead, I’m becoming
you: a museum of wax
figures in wigs, melted
against the heat of grief’s flame.
Emily O'Neill teaches writing and tends bar in Cambridge, MA. Her debut poetry collection, Pelican (2015), won YesYes Books' inaugural Pamet River Prize for women and nonbinary writers, as well as the 2016 Devil's Kitchen Reading Series in Poetry. Her second collection with YesYes, a falling knife has no handle (2018), was named one of the ten most anticipated poetry titles of fall by Publishers Weekly. She is the author of five chapbooks and her recent work appears in Bennington Review, Catapult, Hypertrophic Literary, Little Fiction, Redivider, and Salt Hill, among others.
(Artist) Bill Wolak has just published his fifteenth book of poetry entitled The Nakedness Defense with Ekstasis Editions. His collages have appeared recently in Naked in New Hope 2017, The 2017 Seattle Erotic Art Festival, Poetic Illusion, The Riverside Gallery, Hackensack, NJ, the 2018 Dirty Show in Detroit, and 2018 The Rochester Erotic Arts Festival.
Artist's Statement, "Gasping Between Kisses", collage
I make collages out of all kinds of materials. Most are made out of paper engravings. Many collages are digitally generated or enhanced. To begin a piece, I select some sources—either color or black and white. If I’m using magazines or prints or old books, I cut out some images or parts of images that interest me. Then I start working on a background or some other sort of chance construction. Much is left to fleeting insights. These are tiny miracles of inspiration. Depending on whether I’m using scissors and glue or digital images, each collage could take several hours.