Self-portrait as Postage Stamp

I had purpose once. For a small price,

affixed and franked, I sailed

the world, gave wing to words,

knowing not wherefrom or to,

nor the intent or how I’d be received.

That was for others, the tongue

that applied me and the hand

that would unfold some meaning

from whatever message I had

tucked inside. Humble emissary,

though I bear the face of my nation,

mostly I lived duffled in darkness,

shuttled between a here and there,

scrutinized, sorted, then slipped

through a tight slot in a door.

Say what you will. I adhered.

Richard Foerster’s ninth collection, With Little Light and Sometimes None at All (Littoral Books, 2023), received a Gold Medal at the 2024 Independent Publishers of New England Book Awards. Other honors include the “Discovery”/The Nation Award, Poetry’s Bess Hokin Prize, the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowships, as well as two Maine Literary Awards for Poetry. His work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, The Gettysburg Review, Boulevard, The Southern Review, and The New England Review. He lives in Eliot, Maine.

Algorithms

A theory: you deserve to be numb, but this is not your mother’s

menopause nor your grandfather’s Republican.

Despite the back fat, you must fight fascism

amid your hot flashes.

Another theory:

examine the spring for its trauma response.

Venus disappears, a 40 day retrograde.

Another winter gaslights us into

believing we are sad creatures

who need more gray loungewear.

Another politician gaslights us

into believing complacency buys salvation.

Motto for the year: Pick one

A. it’s easy  to quell  a rebellion of the weary

B. #goals scrolling = despair / shopping = numbness

C. our national news is bootlegged from Canada

D. et tu? Countrymen, you have cleaved my heart in half

Self-care for the end of the world:

Marie Kondo your mind. Buy the perfect T-shirt.

Listen to the music that once moved you. Remember

you are alive, a survivor of the last millennium.

The lines on your face a currency. Your life

is a bestseller a blockbuster a poem

a fucking revelation.

You are a drop water, now fall into the ocean and sing.

Rebecca Watkins holds an MFA in poetry and an MSed from the City University of New York. Her poems have appeared in The Banyan Review, Sin Fronteras, and The Roanoke Review among other literary journals. Her creative nonfiction has been shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Open Season Awards. She is the author of Field Guide to Forgiveness (Finishing Line Press 2023) and Sometimes, in These Places (Unsolicited Press 2017). She lives in Hudson Valley with her husband and two dogs. More of her work can be found at rebeccawatkinswriter.com.

I Dream of Crows and Then I Try to Sing Myself to Sleep

I have no ear for holding the just right note,

but any sound tends to carry, especially

at night, especially in the cold. Nights

like this I remember how my great-great grandmother

knew to leave, and then to keep going.

When I am frightened, I say the prayer

her daughter’s daughter wrote and, often,

the world frightens me—the way we human

through it, wavering, in vibrant strokes.

All vision is revision, a sort of seeming:

this small house, these soft lights,

this old dog, newly washed and sleeping

on the couch beside me. All things so close.

All things so far away. I think she’d tell me

there are no bombs here, not yet.

There is no siren scream or whistlin

shriek to make the air hold its own breath.

Not once this week, this year, or any year

of my life have I had to throw my body

on top of my child’s—my own shrieking

a shock to myself.

Rebecca Brock’s awards include the 2025 Lascaux Poetry Prize, The Comstock Review's Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Poetry Contest, the Kelsay Book’s Woman’s Poetry Prize and the Editor's Choice Award at Sheila-Na-Gig. Her work appears in The Threepenny Review, CALYX, Mom Egg Review and elsewhere. A MacDowell Fellow, she is the author of The Way Land Breaks (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2023). Find more at www.rebeccabrock.org.