TWO POEMS
The Kelpie
another year ignoring the dead horse at the bottom
of the pond, the boy beneath me who told me,
how his nickname is the only thing that comes
to me, & now that I know more about myself
& the nature of kelpies i understand why that
afternoon drags me out to sea, why it’s years
later & my entrails are still lapping
in the shallows of that pond
The Loch Ness Monster
sixth grade I learn the word lesbian,
learn from my mother that she is one, learn from my classmates
that I am one too. I am doing a project on the Loch Ness
Monster, my greatest addition to the scholarly works
of Titus Elementary, I didn’t understand then
more later when my mother consoles me
in the kitchen when Ellen was pushed back
from eight, to nine o’clock, now past my bedtime
because she said the words, “I’m gay” on primetime TV
& again when the thirteen-year-old boys tell me
to get off our bus, dyke, but never really until
sitting across a table from a girl with purple streaks
in her hair wondering how to get her to look at me
Aly Pierce lives in Beverly, MA where she drinks coffee & mails you records from Deathwish Inc. Her debut collection The Visible Planets is forthcoming from Game Over Books.