3 Poems by Alana Solin

CHORE

in clothes I seek sensory
deprivation & in fields

ticks on fibulae I wreck
& gather the mangled gate

just to stand for smoke looking
widowed & godspeed he held

the dog out to the ropey water
just so she could see I’ll outlive

the world so you relax
& move only with its turn

light stooping so shadow
can outgrow its solid half

light outgrowing its source
& the speed of its source

BIRDS FIRST

The sound of music grips in me
A shock of whitening hair
Bleeding summary
Betrays a settlement, that
The sickening mind wants
To put clothes on, I’ve put on
A slideshow, I’ve raised this set
Prop by prop, the thimble draw-
Bridge, the lighthouse’s bright
Kidney, and the above
Birds, the wide
Birds first

I’LL LEAVE THIS LIFE

I’ll leave this life
its essayed brass
where cables burn vapor
a quake turns the porches
the sun is shallow
the sky is gas

---

Alana Solin is a writer from New Jersey. Her writing has appeared in Touch the Donkey, Afternoon Visitor, Tagvverk, Dusie, Annulet, Second Factory, and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook, A Ribbon With No Tail, came out with Bottlecap Press in 2023. You can find more of her work at alanasol.in.