WHY TRUST THIS WORLD

                      by Anna Meister 

after Catherine Barnett

this one here with the shit-smeared sidewalks
and the bottle of cheap white emptied
and the migraine’s blooming
and the lack of overage protection
and the inclement weather affecting my commute
and the losses already suffered, the more I just can’t handle
and the two cats chasing tails
and every green thing in the fridge going, gone, the body only wanting
what I cannot ask for
and the body sexless as a Sunday
and the elevator broken
and the hope in a higher dosage
and the tulips tossed
and the rain that traps me, the trains that trap me
and the night smacked into, the question, lack of evidence
and the too casual kill-yourself joke like eggs floating the way they do
and the pushing past what I am capable of
and the mouth mouthing purpose
and the forgetting, the whatever of it
and the body by the bridge or the implied erasure of the body
like when they say just stay alive
and the prayers I’m kept or not kept in
and the worsening, the visiting hours
and the board games with the missing pieces
and the missing
and the light caught, the thick drapes
and the vital signs taken
and the three square meals
and the applesauce, the weak coffee
and the pellet shits
and the names for feelings, names for pills,
lack of hooks and hangers, the brown paper bags—          

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photo by Eva Lewin

Anna Meister is author of the chapbook NOTHING GRANTED (dancing girl press, 2016) & holds an MFA in poetry from New York University, where she served as a Goldwater Writing Fellow. Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, The Offing, Big Lucks, Tinderbox, The Arkansas International, & elsewhere. Anna was a 2015 Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts Fellow & 2017 National Poetry Series finalist. She lives in Des Moines, IA & at www.anna-meister.com.