A comedian commits suicide.
A black unarmed teenager is gunned down.
I ready for the bloody show. Inside
our new house the cats sniff corners, ghost town
remnants of others. There’s only before
and after. I uncover Queen Anne’s lace
in the back of a Cheveret drawer,
bunched and curled, each dried floret like a face
repeating gestures, or a wicket door.
In a few days the delivery gown
I ordered from Pretty Pushers will grace
my body. Your misshapen head will crown
from the hidden world to the world laid bare,
hands splayed in surrender, saying: I’m here.

​​Alicia Rebecca Myers is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared most recently in or is forthcoming from The Rumpus, Gulf Coast, jubilat, The Carolina Quarterly, The Fairy Tale Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology: Georgia and Best New Poets 2015. In February of 2014, she was awarded a residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center in Nebraska City. Her chapbook, My Seaborgium, will be released from Brain Mill Press in 2016. She welcomed a son last August and teaches at Wells College. You can find her online at aliciarebeccamyers.com.