A Poem by Anne Marie Rooney

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Palinode

I’m sorry I was such a freaky witch.
And cut my face. I’m sorry belly shirts
to the dissection.
Little legs uncrossed at spiders,
the Are we getting our mothers
stuck on? to sorry.
A certain red shirt. I was roots
of moss blonde.
Sorry pink and black capped
the party, sorry learning by choking
to swallow. Stomp stomp,
I went in boots. Dude said he’d loot
my sorry neck.
Through the window
I was bent but just. Light on camel
light; apartments of lip and snarly.
I’m sorry my safety pin slip.
Sorry, stairwell.
I put my cut over the cheapo
flick fire.
Even peed in classrooms.
Sorries were flowers how I rose them:
It was the cat did this my hatred
love blood.
Sorry, cat.
I circled the fat in flame
sharpie, drew the sun about the thick,
even steed.
O sound: A net
my leg rubbed soft was sorry,
I’m running that sorry to the wound

Anne Marie Rooney is the author of Spitshine (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2012), as well as two chapbooks. A co-founder of Line Assembly, she currently lives in New Orleans, where she works as a teaching artist.

You will find more poems here. You may contact the editor at [email protected].