On Grooves

We must slug our pills, little pills, and think
about slouching less and let the house plant

wet. Last night I dreamt I fell asleep
with my glasses on—I can’t forget

 *

this. Eventually, the fluorescent note stuck
to my headboard, reading birth control,

sank into woodiness, the reminder no longer
a reminder but a part

 *

of everything else. Often, I wake
in my basement apartment thinking

it’s raining—trick of the air purifier, blackout
curtains—thinking of your body

 *

like it’s there. I remember
being fascinated by the laying
of bricks—how they hold

one another up. Old streets
to make you think about walking.

Emma DePanise’s poems are forthcoming or have appeared recently in journals such as River Styx, the minnesota review, Passages North, The National Poetry Review, Puerto del Sol, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. She is a winner of a 2019 AWP Intro Journals Award and the 2018 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. Emma is an MFA candidate at Purdue University, a poetry editor for Sycamore Review, and an editor for The Shore.