A Poem in Which the Family Is Not a Tragedy, Union City, TN
Luiza Flynn-Goodlet
15 September 2022
Poetry
Luiza Flynn-Goodlett is the author of Look Alive—a finalist for numerous prizes, including The National Poetry Series, and winner of the 2019 Cowles Poetry Book Prize from Southeast Missouri State University Press—along with seven chapbooks, most recently The Undead, winner of Sixth Finch Books’ 2020 Chapbook Contest, and Shadow Box, winner of the 2019 Madhouse Press Editor’s Prize. Her poetry can be found in Poetry Northwest, Five Points, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. She also serves as Managing Editor of the Whiting Award–winning LGBTQ+ literary journal and press Foglifter.
There are no beige-carpeted bathrooms here.
No frozen lasagna from the salvage grocery.
Not a single pill organizer. The gameshow
network has been canceled. You won't break
the light fixture by opening a closet door too
wide. No one has lived so long under a thumb
that what its nail collects seems feast. Instead,
the apple orchard is crowned with bees. Leave
windows open, and you'll wake to a doe and
her fawn stepping through dew to wrap fruit
in long tongues. To quiet breath and crunch.