Even the Guy on the News Annoys me Now
This year is the end of my hand.
It is fingers alone and pointing backwards.
You can't see my mouth saying who you are.
You're not sure who you are.
You're all these things you didn't vote for,
and all the things you did.
You don't cry enough.
I cry too much.
When the room smells of onions, and they
talk about the way the world broke in half,
all the small animals will hide under your chin.
I search for knives and look for bullets,
but of course we don't have any.
Once, when the world was the relief map on the wall
with the wooden stick and teacher,
he still delighted you.
But now, he just shakes his head all the time and tells
you the news from the hollow tunnel of his brain.
Amy Soricelli has been published in numerous publications and anthologies including Dead Snakes, Corvus Review, Deadbeats, Long Island Quarterly, Voice of Eve, The Muddy River Poetry Review, Vita Brevis, Terse Journal, Remington Review, Literati Magazine, Blind Vigil Review, Red Queen Literary Magazine and The Westchester Review. Her chapbook, Sail Me Away, was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2019. She was nominated by Billy Collins for the Aspen Words Emerging Writer's Fellowship in 2019 and for Sundress Publications "Best of the Net" in 2013. She was also the recipient of the Grace C. Croff Poetry Award, Lehman College, in 1975.