Asking for Only
Julie Gard
I went so deep into that active place of nothing. It happened yesterday while walking. All of the hard things were simply true.
Who needs a confessional when one has a friend? You, friend, are a hovering layer. When I say you, who?
Hold the stitched edges of me together and shake out the crease. Make the whole sheet one with itself, with its folded corners. See how neatly I fit anywhere.
Get me out of the house! Out of the winter! Put me somewhere where my body won’t have edges. Give me a gift that is softer.
Tell me no one and everyone needs me. Tell me no one and everyone sees me. Say I know you like that book, and you can keep it.
Julie Gard’s prose poetry collections include I Think I Know You (FutureCycle Press), Home Studies (New Rivers Press), Scrap: On Louise Nevelson (Ravenna Press), and two chapbooks. Her poems, stories and essays have appeared in Gertrude, Clackamas Literary Review, Blackbox Manifold, and other journals and anthologies. She lives in Duluth, Minnesota and teaches writing at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. You can find her online at www.juliegard.com.