Ruth Baumann: As Evolution Goes
For such a long time, the peacemaker, but.
A world to inhabit, the sun’s skeleton beating down.
So that’s what it’s like. Steady, to be your own.
A man nearby, axe for a head. A man nearby, axe for your head.
Endless corridor of a species. Don’t hold your breath.
Build, instead, a science. Make it speak.
Belonging
The first time I put meth up my nose I thought Oh.
Well that’s a line crossed. Of course
it’s that easy, becoming more than I thought possible,
in any direction—Oh. I have this theory,
that hell & family slink in like that, not
on baby cat feet, but
in one normalized Oh after another.
RUTH BAUMANN is the author of Parse (Black Lawrence Press, forthcoming 2018). She is also the author of three chapbooks: Retribution Binary (Black Lawrence Press, 2017), wildcold (Slash Pines Press, 2016), & I’ll Love You Forever & Other Temporary Valentines (Salt Hill, 2015). She won an AWP Intro Journals Project Award in 2014. Her poems are published in Colorado Review, Sonora Review, Sycamore Review, The Journal, Third Coast & others. She holds an MFA from the University of Memphis & is pursuing her PhD at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida.
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