Summer 2023 | Poetry
Amy McNamara
Three Poems
oh, why don’t you quit
dipping that tin cup
ticky-bang
down the clatter-
hole of the old
dry well
its narrow neck
left empty
& hollow
to swallow
you whole—
blame flimsy tin seams
blame the bucket
of your mind, the dented metal
one with the worn
wooden grip
around the wire
handle & the widening
hole
blame the unstuck flap
of the envelope licked beyond
submission blame submission
then refusal
& the overfull closet
of your heart livid
with nibbling
moths &
memory &
a frequent inability
to let shit go
i flotsam & jetsam, twist in syn
-tactic expansion
but if you’re only ever
for someone else
then you’re pervious to their tides
their heft & drift
your weft—no friction
but in diction
Amy McNamara's poems have appeared in numerous journals and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her novel, Lovely, Dark and Deep, won an ILA Children’s and Young Adults’ Book Award, was an ABC New Voices Pick, and was nominated as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Her second novel, A Flicker in the Clarity, was published in June 2018. She lives in New York.