Hadara Bar-Nadav

WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?


Full-time mother full-time smother full-time teacher full-time failure full-time nail biter full-time queen of never-ending laundry full-time cracked insomniac full-time I could bite my house in half with my family still sleeping inside it full-time white supremacists on TV full-time Camp Auschwitz T-shirts for sale full-time anxiety full-time rage full-time taker of pills full-time sending my pharmacist’s kids to college full-time talk talk talk full-time full of shit full-time doom-scrolling apocalyptic news on demand full-time all of this data will drown me full-time headache ripping through my black dragon eye full-time Zoom meetings that absorb all available daylight full-time crawling towards death minute by minute full-time standing six feet apart from any human thing full-time worship of the bagworm I stand very close to and watch for days full-time chewing maple leaves in slow motion then tucking her speckled head inside her sticky twiggy cocoon full-time hiding myself inside the sticky cocoon of my day full-time chewing my skull from the inside out while hanging by a thread full-time raising my little white flag full-time not transforming into any winged thing full-time screw a pretty ending how do I begin again


HADARA BAR-NADAV is an NEA fellow and author of several books of poetry, including The New Nudity, Lullaby (with Exit Sign), The Frame Called Ruin, and Fountain and Furnace. She is also coauthor of the bestselling textbook Writing Poems, 8th ed. She is Professor of English and MFA faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.


Issue Eleven
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