DD

by Emma Johnson-Rivard

Consider the universe contained
in a glass. This is a metaphor, a tool
worked on all levels, as the poets do.
The process creates an individual, aimed to
understand some shade of our reality. Something
beyond the self. I’ve been asked if I drink. It’s assumed
I drink. I come from a family of artists and alcoholics, the path
splintered. We didn’t mean to go so strange. This is the
paradox. I think about these things. The question remains.
Their nature assumed. Sobriety written in DNA to avoid
inevitability, or yet another metaphor. Actually, they’re
not. This is as literal as it gets but their nature assumes
an exception. The idea falls within. Don’t mistake the point.
I’m talking about a brink now, the looming, the heritage of
biology and nurture. A friend asked me. She already knew, but
I told her again. The telling is a powerful addition, repeated
time after time. What happened next was metaphor, too,
so to speak. A mirror inside both of us, our journey. We
know what we could be.

A Weak Heart

Do you ever feel anxious?

Science argues that every emotion,
any instrument, can be used
to great effect. The human body
makes this effortless. Allow me
to demonstrate. If you can’t,
then you must be deficient
somehow. This will be going
in your chart.

When feeling anxious, I have learned to begin
by focusing on my hands and the reality
of known threats rather the weight of my
weak heart. This is the lesson learned. You
wanted monsters and so I focus.
I grab the throat
I begin.

Sea Glass, or The Poet Reads Opinion Pieces

I have been bitten. A mouth angles,
focused on the crux. I don’t care for
a kiss these days. Nonetheless, we,

royal, dream of monsters as the waves crash
and break. The beach bleeds glass,
always shining upon our era. So it goes.

Suffer beautiful and stoic, please,
as the reels demand. Otherwise,
you might seem ungrateful.

Have you made a wish, my dear?
I collect them now, beloved
among my scars. I cannot name the
ending, this is beyond me. But

define power for me, please. I would
like to know how it goes. At the end,
we are enduring great pain, we

would like to know the cost
was worth the words.

BIO

Emma Johnson-Rivard is a doctoral student in fiction at the University of Cincinnati. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Coffin Bell, Red Flag Poetry, and others. She can be found at Bluesky at @blackcattales and at emmajohnson-rivard.com.