BY Hank McNally
I wear a black tank top. When I find my reflection
in a shut window, glossy black, like a computer screen: there I am,
as if digitally collaged onto the night sky.
Does anyone else notice how my tits droop
like unwatered flowers? Unwatered, unwanted things.
I do love a good orchid— & the purple wildflowers
that line the winding Pennsylvania roads guiding me
to Maria’s house. But these things on me
are no flowers. Rather, they’re weeds
that need to be pulled from my bodyground.
After I was born, my mother told me she was so happy to have a girl. I am the fourth born.
Three older brothers. Some people get so lucky.
But what happens when you let someone down? When you're reminded over & over of the consequences, of hell? “Hell is other people.”? No,
hell is alleged.
People can be good and kind.
They often are.
Hank McNally is a non-binary, lesbian poet. They live and work in Chicago as a pizza cook. Hank has studied poetry in undergraduate school in Pittsburgh, PA and more recently, they attended a Poetry MFA program at Columbia College Chicago in Chicago, IL. Hank has various publications, but the one they are most proud of is their piece, “I’d Be a Lake,” published in issue 3 of Taco Bell Quarterly. Hank is probably currently vibing an and/or diving into some leftist content online, made by their favorite himbo socialist, Hasan Piker.