Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.
Puzzle Pieces
by D. A. Powell
They haven’t invented a “morning after” pill that actually gets rid of the morning after. As long as we’re talking about where I been.
Down to the E-Z Stop market to grab some buds. That’s when I ran into Hot Check Hannah, who wrote, you guessed it, a hot check
& got me some smokes. Somehow I still had five bucks when I got to the bar. I wish I’d had it when I left. I could have used five dollars.
I’m not even gonna tell you what it was like to fuck in Eddie’s trailer. Or Eddie’s friend’s trailer. [Different Eddie] [Different trailer]
God knows where he is now. Once, we were close enough to give each other lice. The future is the present we leave for others.
Besides the complications, there were bodies, the wonder of bodies, the misery of bodies. Oh, Time, you done robbed me blind.
Copyright © 2021 by D. A. Powell. Used with the permission of the author. First appeared in Iowa Reviewvol 44 issue 3 and later published in and chapbook Atlas T (2020.)
About the Author
D. A. Powell is a painter and poet living in San Francisco. His books include Repast (Graywolf, 2014) and Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys (Graywolf, 2012). He received the 2019 John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. Twitter: @powell_da
2021 Queer Poem a Day
- Day 1: Pride Month by Shelley Wong
- Day 2: Is This or Is This True as Happiness by Derrick Austin
- Day 3: Nature Poem by Sam Herschel Wein
- Day 4: Ana I Don’t Forget by Gala Mukomolova
- Day 5: Eavesdropping on Adam and Eve by Andrea Cohen
- Day 6: Billow of Thistles by Ruben Quesada
- Day 7: Prayer for My Trans Siblings by H. Melt
- Day 8: Summer by Chen Chen
- Day 9: Embers by Henri Cole
- Day 10: Male Beauty by Richie Hofmann
- Day 11: [unsent draft] by Rachel Mennies
- Day 12: Forty by Julia Guez
- Day 13: Of Contour, of Cadence by Phillip B. Williams
- Day 14: The Men We Loved by Cyril Wong
- Day 15: Riding the Bus Back to Oxford by Catherine Pond
- Day 16: The Window by Jay Besemer
- Day 17: Want Could Kill Me by Xandria Phillips
- Day 18: What a Waste by Jill McDonough
- Day 19: Eros by Randall Mann
- Day 20: An Act by Michael M. Weinstein
- Day 21: Things I Didn’t Do With this Body and Things I Did by Amanda Gunn
- Day 22: Puzzle Pieces by D. A. Powell
- Day 23: Duplicity by Jameson Fitzpatrick
- Day 24: Is It True All Legends Once Were Rumors by Carl Phillips
- Day 25: High School Sleepovers with Straight Girls by Julian Guy
- Day 26: Abu Nuwas by Kazim Ali
- Day 27: Observation Car by Lauren Clark
- Day 28: Love Song by Eileen Myles
- Day 29: Donuts by Dan Kraines
- Day 30: The Lone Palm by Jenny Johnson
Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this second year of our series is the first movement, Schéhérazade, from Masques, Op. 34, by Karol Szymanowski, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.
