Sophie Chouinard’s most recent poem to appear here was “What We Drag From A Cava Bottle” (May 2016)

Conversation Piece
By Sophie Chouinard

“what we don’t want to say
is what keeps us awake at night”
someone scribbled, between teeny stars
and a pot smoking skull, on the wall
of a bathroom stall—

I have been meaning to tell you about
the ache; about how i hate postscriptums,
and confined spaces and goodbyes;
to talk of this urge to walk away,
before the dust settles in my eyes, before
the thinning ice we stand on fully melts.

What i have been telling you
is that i no longer sleep at night.