BLUE FLAME

Actresses in their dressing rooms,
ambassadors. Undoing distinctions
between body and environment.
A woman standing in the bath.
A woman drying her feet. Reading
after the bath. A lion in the pan.
Not giving a damn about your
demons. Or loving them. Naming
them. Try it with your mouth,
to make a better sound and another
better sound. You start doing it to
stop feeling so much and you keep
doing it to keep feeling so much.

Emily Pettit is a poet, artist, editor, and teacher from Western, Massachusetts. She is the author of Blue Flame (Carnegie Mellon University Press) and Goat In The Snow (Birds LLC). Emily is an editor for Factory Hollow Press and jubilat.