The orchestra has committed

suicide.

 

I never wanted love. I never wanted

 

love. I want fuchsia, frying pans, the sea,

my name seeks atonement,

 

I’m sinking to the floor,

a red skillet, duck fat,

 

that’s my back, cracking the night

like a wishbone.

 

***

Maggie MK Hess lives and writes in Seattle. She serves as poetry editor of the Los Angeles Review. Her poems have appeared recently in FIELD, Painted Bride Quarterly, Pleiades, and others. She is working on a first book of poetry, organizes The Unauthorized Readings, and writes the humor blog Dear Mr. Postman.

 

“Ballast” appears in Artificial Intelligence (TLR Late Fall / Early Winter 2013)