Jessica Tolbert’s work has previously appeared in DREGINALD, Devil’s Lake, GlitterMOB, The Collagist, and elsewhere. "Strangers, Objects" is her first chapbook. She currently lives in Philadelphia where she is an MSW candidate at the University of Pennsylvania.
Placid
This makes conversational sense
Earl’s cross country killing spree
two stepping on Molly in a cowboy bar
a biochemist and her black mold experiment
under her sink nearly killed her
sweat on my back like a layer of frost
an inundation of true crime
when she walked toward the truck cab parked he came to himself
I anticipated images of black zip ties
grateful for sleep like a horse run through mountains and desert
sweet rot saint of ativan and soapy smoke collapsing from the brainstem in and grasp me by my jaw like a hound