New Work by Alana Solin

ALL SIRENS IN JOHNSON COUNTY

I am tested by morning

and a portal closing.

The door shuns the room

no working doors. Always

sound broadens but

not closely enough.

Wind lifting the edges.

Wind probing 

for passage,

neck whittled 

to throat.

I believe in the body

where a high note dies.

SPENT

I do love to read but I also love to lapse. My nipples coming through my shirt, I love gerunds and

going and my last breath spent defending both. A man on the phone says, I'm here, he says, the

81's not ready, why did you call me...I wonder what I am, not understanding. The answer is yes

and all the time.

IN IT 

My body demonstrates a curious hold. Toward this I shake my gratitude. At the center of fact,

there is a little spinning top; the trick is to add friction until the glass turns to crackling syrup. I

know I must do nothing. I stay in the poem I say I recede when I recesss. I launch athletically, I

use my questionable body, I offer answers: another smoke, a closet of red clothing, my body

wading into the deep sand.

Alana Solin is a writer from New Jersey. Her work has appeared in Touch the Donkey, Afternoon Visitor, Dusie, TAGVVERK, Annulet, Second Factory, and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook, A Ribbon With No Tail, came out from Bottlecap Press in 2023. You can find more at alanasol.in.