Kirby Knowlton 
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Non-Fiction Poem                                                                                          
            after Lucie Brock-Broido

I have a body un-heirloomed.

            There are two kinds of people in the world
& I choose neither.

            Some memories are woody & linger
                        like the rosemary bush the dog liked to piss in.

Others silently echo like the one sunken key
            on the piano in the wings.

                        More than being beautiful
                        I want to move languidly
                        in a room with no ceiling.

Which means being beautiful
            with only God watching.

There are many things I’d like to say to hurt you.
           
            For example: a baby can survive being left
in the cold longer than an adult

& we only know
because it’s happened.




Kirby Knowlton is a student at the University of North Carolina - Greensboro. Her poems have previously appeared in Poetry, The Greensboro Review, The Indianapolis Review, among other places



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