by Tom Snarsky

I say are you serious and my phone
googles the angry thing I meant
to say to the debt collector, who has me

on hold. I opened my heart to April
and became a serious liar, full
of dolls and music and more lateral

mistakes than I’m used to making,
five eggs in the from-scratch dough.
If you are invited to a party and do not know

the host, what do you bring? Not Jesus,
dripping with sirens. Not a lathe
even though you could offer to sharpen

every knife in the house.

Tom Snarsky is the author of the chapbooks Threshold (Another New Calligraphy) & Complete Sentences (Broken Sleep Books), as well as the full-length collections Light-Up Swan and Reclaimed Water (both from Ornithopter Press). His book A Letter From The Mountain & Other Poems is forthcoming from Animal Heart Press in 2025, and the title poem is available to read on Metatron Press’s GLYPHÖRIA platform. He lives in the mountains of northwestern Virginia with his wife Kristi and their cats. You can find him on Twitter, Instagram, & Bluesky @tomsnarsky.