We Have Grown Tired Of by Kathleen McGookey

We Have Grown Tired Of:

1. Assigned seats
2. The prix fixe meal
3. Rinsing out our stockings in the hotel bathroom sink
4. Monogrammed cloth napkins
5. The hand at the small of our backs, steering us; the sleek voice, purring, ladies, this way
6. Our sensible, low-heeled, black leather pumps, which crouch like sewer rats under our beds
7. Fifteen minutes in every gift shop following the tour
8. Our dark wool skirts which disguise stains.
9. The soft-boiled egg at breakfast, its top sliced off, the runny yolk simmering like a tiny, sulfurous lake

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Kathleen McGookey has published four books of prose poems and three chapbooks, most recently Instructions for My Imposter (Press 53) and Nineteen Letters (BatCat Press). She has also published We’ll See, a book of translations of French poet Georges Godeau’s prose poems. Her work has appeared in journals including Copper Nickel, Crazyhorse, December, Field, Glassworks, Miramar, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Quiddity, and The Southern Review. She has received grants from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Sustainable Arts Foundation.