Lindsey Novak is a writer who followed the sun west from her native Missouri Ozarks to the dusty Arizona East Valley. She teaches composition for Arizona State University and her work appears in The Fourth River, The Rumpus, Atticus Review, Angel City Review, Puerto del Sol, and is forthcoming in Chattahoochee Review. This is her debut chapbook.
Inspired By
Inspired by the elven.
Inspired by the cloven-hoofed.
Inspired by horses & hunter green.
Inspired by the micro-plastics in our DNA.
Inspired by, Earth isn’t your mother;
she’s a saga.
Inspired by don’t look at me.
Inspired by but my hands shake.
Inspired by regression.
Inspired by smoking again.
Inspired by throwing rocks at trains.
My father asks me questions
he doesn’t really want to know the answers to.
I am the daughter of No-One, son of Void.
Always more prophet than profit.
Inspired by all my dominoes fallin’ in a row.
Inspired by, come runnin’ all the way down my driveway; come runnin’ hands up to my heart.
One for the glow up—
two for the grave.
A man died today,
who, the last time I looked in his eyes,
shivered.