You Are Already Doing It
This week in the PEN Poetry Series, guest editor TC Tolbert features a poem by Emily Kendal Frey. About Frey’s work, Tolbert writes: “In a time of increasing political and social upheaval, Emily’s work grounds me in the extraordinary-ordinary, a daily-ness worth defending. Her attention reminds me of something Alice Walker says in Anything We Love Can Be Saved: ‘even the smallest stone glistens with tears, yes, but also from the light of being seen, and loved for simply being there.’ I am buoyed by this generous clarity.”
You Are Already Doing It
Someone not in politics
Big bunch of bananas
A long clear light
Having sex with you feels like fruit
The outside and inside
A skin, life under it
When I got to the lake I saw it
A dangly earring shape bordered by trees
We led my mom too far
Had to climb a nest of boulders to get back
It’s okay she said
I want stronger legs
I can’t hold everything I know
Every day my body more angry
Waiting for some part of the mystery
To dispense itself
On the bus, buying groceries
Saying small lies
Soothing them into your narrative
If it’s no one’s fault
The lake has to hold it
The hope of a tourist
All those family bits
Shedding skin
An emerald
On a tiger’s head
I don’t love
The path
But I love its alive and growing border
Me and you
Somewhere
Wishing for more
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