bric-a-brac

By Emily Corwin / Issue 11

a permanent address for when
I am impermanent. my once-house.

I make house where I am no longer,
unfill the duffel on a twin bed, take

stock of their belongings now: Woolite,
gallon Ziploc bags, orthotics, Tupperware

and pebbled leather, scrunchies, briefcase,
cupboard, gravy boat, nurse scrubs, saltines,

brassy lamps, broom and pan, paisley, wicker.
I am anxious to know what my parents ingest,

intake for existence: Metoprolol, fish oil, aspirin,
Omeprazole, Rosuvastatin for Dad. for Mom:

Magnesium, Pravastatin, Atenolol, fish oil,
cranberry probiotic. she gets kidney stones—

accumulation of calcium and phosphate.
because they are impermanent, I cry out,

lie inside this once-room, whisper for less
pain, clammy under God’s whiskers.

EMILY CORWIN is a recent graduate of the MFA program at Indiana University, as well as the former poetry editor of Indiana Review. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Ninth Letter, New South, Yemassee, Gigantic Sequins, THRUSH, and elsewhere. She has two chapbooks, My Tall Handsome (Brain Mill Press) and darkling (Platypus Press) which were published in 2016. Her first full-length collection, tenderling was released from Stalking Horse Press earlier this year. She was a finalist for the 2018 Pleiades Press Editors Prize and recently, her manuscript, sensorium was chosen as the Editor’s Choice selection for the 2018 Akron Poetry Prize.