Sunday morning cast wide your nets.
Nimble fingers tickle down a harvest
of therapists for adolescents, depressed
yet still trotting out to-do lists. Our listless
rider of the emotional waterbed. We

are worried. She,
a starfish, prone, pricks our attempts
at soothing tones
and I want to throw my body
at those rocks

like I’m some medieval lady in a white dress
instead of the worried mom wandering,
4:00 a.m. hunched before the blue light,
Hail Mary-ing the internet in grey sweatpants.

Rachel Kessler’s essays, poems, cartoons, videos, and visual art have appeared in The Stranger, Narrative Magazine, Literary Hub, Poetry Northwest, The Open Daybook, forthcoming Ghosts of Seattle Past, and public restrooms throughout Washington state. Kessler is cofounder of poetry performance collaborations Typing Explosion and Vis-à-Vis Society. She is currently working on a community cartography project called “Profanity Hill: A Tour of Yesler Way.”

Website: rachelkessler.org

Twitter: @RachelLaKessler