READ A POEM
for when you need to disappear
by Sarah Dravec
the device you use when you need to disappear
is made of parts of people serene and bloody
you put the parts over your parts and whisper
I am not ugly
you take the parts off and whisper
something loves me
when it is time to gather more parts there is no diagram for
disassembling a person’s love parts glowing synapses
cavernous vessels it is specific disappearance in here
in this person valley this awful depth yes go in the cave
you whisper
I am dead and invisible
and then you are
how directionless is a pile of blue sinew
what are you hearing from the dead when will you
evaporate worthless into someone else’s soil and
will anything grow in the missing you
“for when you need to disappear” by Sarah Dravec, from Columbia Poetry Review. Columbia College, Chicago, 2016. Used by permission of the author.
Sarah Dravec is a graduate of the Northeast Ohio MFA. She has been awarded a University and College Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and her work has appeared in
Bone Bouquet,
jubilat and Pinwheel. Sarah lives in Northeast Ohio with her wife.
WRITE A POEM
Write a poem about a mistake you made during middle school.