Dear Extraterrestrial

Kathy Goodkin

Why does the sidewalk just sit there while the stars alphabet the sky?

It is everything. I thought it would be. Which is to say I am disappointed.

So please describe these objects in orbit: an Indiana farmhouse, a closet full of skirts.

Whether they are “skirts” or “a skirt” I cannot discern, but the torn edge/s flap and gingham is on the breeze.

Now here you might see more light, writing the basest of stories: asphalt,

old potpourri charm, flies wings, &c. individually packaged against dust,

alphabetized in bulk bins. The applications are so many;

a great number of mites on my hands. This is the conclusion. Bye. I said goodbye.

I am due to watch a man on a fire escape, and very soon the TV light will break my carapace.

Why Ghosts Come Back In Clothes

Tonight the domestic
pretends to be the world

soft blue me-ghost riding
the sofa until dawn

window me this:
what moved across the room

in the early glare
I never saw fabric like that

a part of the air
Is it sad

all my dead lined up
behind the curtain waiting?

Kathy Goodkin is the author of Crybaby Bridge (Moon City Press, 2019) and Sleep Paralysis (dancing girl press, 2017). She serves an editor for feminist publisher Gazing Grain Press and provides poetry manuscript consultation for The North Carolina Writers’ Network. Kathy's poems & criticism have appeared in Cream City Review, Field, Denver Quarterly, RHINO, The Volta, & elsewhere. She lives in North Carolina; you can find her online at www.kathygoodkin.com.