I have TWO poems published in Nettle Literary this month! The January 26 edition is Nettle Literary’s first issue, and I’m so excited to be a part of it.

Enjoy the excerpts below, and read both poems and the whole issue at Nettle Literary.

Ode to the Poet at Seventeen

I see my youth mostly in the slurred lips of a costume party​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ backseat of a Honda​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ black pick-up truck where you smelled like a lie I wanted to believe in

Upon learning that murder rates rise in the summer,

I lodge a prayer beneath my tongue and a canister of pepper spray in my sweatpants pocket; throw on a hoodie, suffer the heat.

July should come with a trigger warning, melted snow water on every street corner instead of wolfish appetites with sharp teeth.

I beg the sky to stay grey a little longer, but even after I sealed the old dryer vent where the mice got in, they still found ways

to fool the putty, elude the cold.

Artwork: “Night” by Edward Robert Huges & “Saint Cecilia” by Onori Marinari.