Jessica Fjeld

Who died and made you

I’m sorry that the pencil I gave you

to write out the list of how the day had wronged you

had a lead so soft it collapsed into the page

easy as an Odalisque      I’m sorry you were

alone when it happened and that your skin

was purple, trying to right itself

on a sea that had taken inspiration from

the geography of a mall’s escalators

which is to say it did go up and down

but nowhere you could locate    I was designed

to love but am sideways determined to lose