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the poet
K Weber lives and writes in the midwestern United States. Her writing has been included in issues of Memoir Mixtapes, Detritus Online, Black Bough Poetry, Writer’s Digest, Moonchild Magazine, Theta Wave and others. Her most recent project, THIS ASSEMBLY, features poems written using words 'donated' by more than 165 people.
the poems
In lieu of flowers
These Indiana corn fields never apologize
when their soil is turned or the crops burn.
Whole trees remove their leaves. Some
roots snap. Sturdiest trunks don’t know
how many annual rings they have. Their
birthdays are belated at best. There’s
no haggling over who’s most forgetful
or forgotten. I say “sorry” when someone
runs over my foot with a shopping cart. I say
“sorry” when the bruise of verbal
abuse hits my ear; excuse myself for being
alive, with deepest sympathies.
Abundance
Another holiday passes
in pay-it-fast-forward
but in guilty rear-view
was a million colors
and textures long.
So much glass and scuffed,
new shoes. Decorations
hung themselves when
we walked by, unnoticed.
Jesus wept. Those little
glowing lights: electric
bill a giant who’s wielding
unnecessary stress. Left-
overs became counterfeit
nutrition through January.
We did or did not loosen
belts when it came to doubt.
Commune and commute
No one put the salt
outside your apartment
building. I slipped
in the parking lot
while watching the frost-
bit moon have another
cigarette.
No one put the salt
down inside your apartment.
I slipped into your bed-
room, thawed my bruised hip
in neutral sheets. I didn’t
leave until the last
cigarette after breakfast.
I passed the salt
trucks as I slid an hour; my
grip was not slippery
but each knuckle was sick
as a ghost’s stomach.
I started smoking the last
of my cigarettes
for the next three years.
Publishing credits
All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb