Thrush Poetry Journal
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Jill McDonough

Poor Pussy

Carl says he wants to open a door 
in Ed’s chest and crawl in, which makes us fall

in love with Carl.  We want to be near 
him, stand too close 

in bars.  Carl makes us want to play 
Poor Pussy, a parlor game we learned when we 

were five. My grandma taught me. You 
can look it up.  You keep a straight face 

while someone pets your head and says 
poor pussy.  Poor, poor pussy.  Or 

at least you try.  I am a Poor Pussy 
champion, want Carl to lose to me

again and again.  Come back, Carl, 
we love you.  Carl, we’ll let you win.





Jill McDonough is the winner of a 2014 Lannan Literary Fellowship and three Pushcart prizes, she is the author of Habeas Corpus (Salt, 2008), Oh, James! (Seven Kitchens, 2012), Where You Live (Salt, 2012), and REAPER, forthcoming from Alice James Books. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and Stanford’s Stegner program, she taught incarcerated college students through Boston University’s Prison Education Program for thirteen years.  Her work has appeared in Poetry, Slate, The Nation, The Threepenny Review, and Best American Poetry.  She directs the MFA program at UMass-Boston and 24PearlStreet, the Fine Arts Work Center online. 




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