Beer bottles slick my truck bed
in their strangle hold as I idle
by water in Arkansas. 

Bats test the thinning air with 
their velvet tongues. 
The sun kicks its heels

like a federation, 
like a burning house with all the lights on. 
From a squint I can see the day

shrug off its slip. Somewhere else,
where I should be, 
there’s no dinner wrapped in cellophane, 

no glass of milk bright white in the dark room,
no bed low as a lake for me to dip in,
private and damp with your dreams,

your odors. 
The path breathes out its lung
of dust, and I am done for. 

All my life I’ve been licked and loping:
neck bent like a faucet, 
angling to be halfway good.

Published October 18th, 2020

Hannah Bonner's poems have appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, So to Speak, The North Carolina Literary Review, The Pinch Journal, The Vassar Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and Two Peach. Her essays have been featured in Bright Wall/Dark Room, Bustle, The Little Patuxent Review, and VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts.

Fanny Allié is an artist based in New York City. Born in Montpellier, France, Allié received a degree in Performing Arts from Paul Valéry University, and an MA in Visual Arts from Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie, (National School of Photography) in Arles. Frequently exhibiting in New York City and France, Allié’s work has also been featured in New York Magazine, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Gothamist, Marie Claire, Artspace Magazine, Artnet, and Artnews, among others. Allié is currently an artist in residence at Dieu Donné in Brooklyn, and is part of the exhibit Music For The End Of Time at Owen James Gallery until the 21st of November.

Her work can be viewed at: http://fannyallie.com/index.html