Malice

Julianne Neely

the temperature of the human = body

can heat up significantly = centigrade

moving vertical match = es could

never achieve this type of lit = up

vapors and gases that spill like = sus

tained lies into the air she = spun and

translated how her = fingers t ouch

how her ribs prod at = my skin how

her tongue makes = phonetics my eyes

dizzy let me pick = which lie to keep

up with today = watch the hipster salon

put = different colors in your

expensive = hair as a farm share

delivers your = organic broccoli for

you to cut into = bits for you a boy is

carrying a = golden goose filled coat

how sick = Americans make me and I

am one stealing = shoes if I want my

feet to be covered = cans from the food

pantry I offer to = my friends we feast

together as a = royal skippy family my

enemies = they

won’t eat my poor shit they = art iculate

this wow dramatis = person ae whatever

is the opposite = of main character you

are the white noise = of money apple

watch titanium credit = card the hour is

forgivable the slack = is not as it arches

toward information = ass embly

pantomime for profit ≠ sonnet artificial

thumbs do not = good poems o o o rabid

narcissism rots like = milk left out in the

liquid sun and yes = I have come out

swinging like = a volatile helix or a river

or doors = of in unit washer and dryer the

cycle = set to spin and the coffee maker

= unused in the morning the rich can’t =

resist buying their coffee fresh six =

dollars a cup and I feel so lucky so =

lucky my self-recognition is platinum =

bliss revealed like a spread eagle = I like

to be exact when I say that I = say most

poets are like pyrite = mirror glint poof

they are gone = most

are fooled by it but I am not =

how you see me = you are a fool

you see = you are a fool

Julianne Neely received her MFA degree from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, where she received the Truman Capote Fellowship, the 2017 John Logan Poetry Prize, and a Schupes Fellowship for Poetry. She is currently a Poetics PhD student and an English Department Fellow at the University at Buffalo. Her writing has been published in Hyperallergic, VIDA, The Poetry Project, The Rumpus, The Iowa Review and more. She has three chapbooks out with Slope Editions, garden-door Press, and Foundlings Press.