by Sierra Nelson
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Nausea colors everything yellow, even sounds.
She is trying to imagine the coughs and hacks nearby
as Vespas and operas, tuning them out like
her drunken twenties, let them fly by and not kill her,
let this be a good story to tell someone later.
Yellow nausea coming down like a pall,
her teeth and fingernails
feel pitted and grooved with the feeling.
her teeth and fingernails
feel pitted and grooved with the feeling.
The baby won’t sleep until 2 a.m.,
not until he finally poops and throws up,
then is ready to cry himself to dreams in her arms.
Who wants to remember this feeling, this long yellow night?
Better to stare down the distance of cold concrete blue.
A certain set of the face that seems mean or disgusted
is only trying not to turn inside out with knotted worms.
not until he finally poops and throws up,
then is ready to cry himself to dreams in her arms.
Who wants to remember this feeling, this long yellow night?
Better to stare down the distance of cold concrete blue.
A certain set of the face that seems mean or disgusted
is only trying not to turn inside out with knotted worms.
The pamphlet from the doctor suggested
putting on music or setting the table with roses.
She tries putting on the third person,
observes the queasy feeling
as if reflected light in a window,
or seen in passing from the street.
Squelching and squirching, a roiling sensation in the belly.
The baby is asleep, why can’t she be?
putting on music or setting the table with roses.
She tries putting on the third person,
observes the queasy feeling
as if reflected light in a window,
or seen in passing from the street.
Squelching and squirching, a roiling sensation in the belly.
The baby is asleep, why can’t she be?
A yellow train pulls out from the station,
and she tries to ignore each lurch and jerk,
tries to focus on time as landscape’s blurry motion,
a slurring of yellow light through green leaves
in a wind she’s too far to feel.
and she tries to ignore each lurch and jerk,
tries to focus on time as landscape’s blurry motion,
a slurring of yellow light through green leaves
in a wind she’s too far to feel.
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