Sunday, October 22, 2023

SONJA VITOW—"(WHEN NO ONE)" (Issue 26)

(When No One)

a soft thing often 
hopes to be touched 

(the temptation to take a soft 
thing in your palm 

& when no one is looking, 
check to see that it’s really 
so soft) 

to tender something 
delicate (when no one is looking) 
what great responsibility 

(the temptation to take a soft 
thing in your palm 

& spend a finger over it, 
thinking just: how soft, how 

fragile) the temptation 

to take the soft thing between 
a finger and thumb 
and apply some pressure 

(just some) 

& when it breaks, pretend 
it was never soft 

(the temptation to then say) 
I didn’t know my own strength



ABOUT THE POET 

Sonja Vitow (she/they) is a queer Jewish teacher living in the Jamaica Plain 
neighborhood of Boston, where they are the editor of a small literary magazine 
called The Knicknackery and in charge of the soap enterprise I'd Lather Not. They 
received their MFA in creative writing from Emerson College in 2013, and are 
currently pursuing their PhD in human sexuality from Widener University. Some 
of their work can be found in Rattle, Harvard Review, Fugue Journal, The Rumpus
and Carve Magazine, or at SonjaVitow.com.



ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 


We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 
opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 
poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 
from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 
hear it.

No comments:

Post a Comment