2 Poems by Joan Tate

Best Thought

I admire your lack of idealism

Commitment to the bit

Of knowing where the exits are

Detachment as best practice

I am still too sentimental

A tree is just like a breeze

Waving at sparrows gone bye

Bye Benny

I want to be alone for the week

Papering first thought over first thought

Happy Birthday Chris

Sleep is basically food

I am not pretty enough

For creeps to want me

I’ve been eating so orderly

And where my golden star, oh lover

Lip is angry at metal

I tell my ex to bite the curb

Eyes boring softly

Out of text up on the wall of the station

First thought giving way

To a wall of arrowheads

Arrowheads and arrowheads

and roses

Agency

Protein bar for breakfast,

You could fix me

If that was how this worked

Crawling to the end of my street

On my fingers

No more fingernails

I give blood to whoever

Check book for my humors

I'm ignoring the body

All down the way to the Canal

Waiting there for Corey

Waiting for a hit or a least

A paycheck big enough to really break shit

And Howling Wolf in the kitchen

Swans for breakfast

I am kind to some of all the right people

I take my tips

I find my lists

Falling from imaginary air

Bodies on the sidewalk

Beg me for 20 bucks

Dreamt I was better than deliverance

And when the Bombs would stop

Only you and I could know

Joan Tate is a southern poet, mystic, and transexual living in Western Mass. Her work has been featured in places such as Prairie Schooner, Discount Guillotine, b l u s h, Stone of Madness, and more. She hopes you're doing alright.