the last to leave were redwings. / Forests turned into harpsichords.

From the wombs / of true believers, / I came out faithless

The coming-of-age writer is sitting in her first Fiction Workshop at a Liberal Arts College. She grew up devouring the stories of this country the way only an outsider could, by looking up each phrase and testing it out on her tongue.

who are we, if not the living?

I watch its loping stride/slow motion under streetlamp strobe.

Often, I mistake streetlights for the moon/even when they blink.

I never liked crabs, those that stroll the beach armoured