box full of yearbook outtakes and things that survived the fire
stare at the photo of sun on dog in squares of light sun on light with dog in sun all over in squares of light on a page of pictures in the archive that remembers me always turning dog morning sneaking through the window of the basement where I hide what I refuse to eat in a box of pictures the best way to loop time capture and destroy time ease time away like lit birthday candles reducing themselves to wax throwing shadow on the white rug the blue chair and the charcoal stain behind There are too many COLORS in this house THAT’S why it had to burn give me a photo like a benediction the plural swing of all our hauntings passing over the substitute house like a fleet of men like a parcel of men like MOM there’s a flock of MEN passing over the house no one took any pictures of that but look here’s one where I’m in the parking lot with pink hair one outside the 1998 cooper union national youth poetry slam one at the public pool where I never get high enough to stay casual the air prodding the edges of my skin or here sitting alone in the bitter kitchen downstairs by the stacked boxes with the custody papers I won’t see until later and in this one I am laughing. swanned out on the couch ready for the damage and in this one I am dancing skinny limbs tossed around and in this one I am staring down calculating a dog’s lifespan on my toes the years between then and now divided in squares of light on the carpet in lit squares
griffin epstein is a non-binary white settler from NYC (Lenape land) working in education and community-engaged research in Toronto (Dish with One Spoon/Treaty 13). They have been featured in Glad Day’s Emerging Writers Series, and their poetry has appeared in Grain Magazine, The Maynard and Plenitude, among others. griffin is the author of so we may be fed, forthcoming from the Frog Hollow Press disability chapbook series. They play music in SPOILS, make games with shrunken studios, and develop multimedia work with poet Shannon Quinn and artist bryan depuy.
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