Three Poems, by Melanie Farley

rain poem.
--

flirting with the late capi-
talist hellscape dry
humping American
Dream      because

you know me
                I’m thirsty                  nice to

meet you    I’m socially determinant

apologies    couldn’t hear over

        the late capitalist dry

humping American

Dream                because

you know me

                                   on the day I’m

finally free I’ll sing

                 “fuck” three times

                                              I’ll say


                                 excuse me,

                 smells like

                 rain

                 smells like

                 steady

                 smells like
​
                  time

---

Life in wartime
--

​“I’m practicing”

                 I pull my shoulders back crack
 
                 my neck and I would have
                 become a vampire but
                 it bored me

I would have remembered but
It won’t ever matter again
What day it is

A list of people watching you
die while you chat about the weather:

                          your hairdresser,
                          the bus driver,
                          the security guard at school, the

barista. It’s weird
to need other people
this much.

Anyway,
​       I’m not worried I
       can’t even hear
       the screams             anymore

       And even if I knew Ninjitsu
       It wouldn’t matter now

---

it's like my mom died twice
--

​anchored you
can see       a woman
just trying with

big, baggy            thing-i-ness
to smoke less
and       there she is
​
                           again

waking up all
clothes-

               like big,
       baggy          thing-y

stay   away from her
         it might be

contagious       and oh

you must be     so tired
by now
​
of crying

Melanie Farley is a poet, tarot card reader, and creative writing professor at the University of the Arts. In 2018, in collaboration with musician Joe Pfender, she performed "coughing is a form of love" at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. In 2016, dancing girl press published her chapbook "things we have in writing POEMS (for Z)." She has an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts, and she currently lives in Philadelphia with her cat, Luna. @poet4sale on Instagram.​