dear alfreda

almost october, a spaghetti jar of cigarette butts rolls off the roof but does not break. i lean on a 2x4
with all my weight. luck here carries from room to room like a pack of devotional flies.

luck is a relative concept i try not to press.

at dawn, eva and anna comb lice from my hair with their key-long nails and somehow i’m rid of it, eggs
and all.

last night, a sway-kick of an airborne knife found the thigh of a man with a near miss to that important
artery. after we stitch him up, the great ghost debate ensues. but who cares if who done it is living or
not? worry about infection.

when i talk about the dead, i talk about horizons that flicker with lightning, about luck like how the
threat of rain exists but often never arrives.

or the point of this whole letter is to say it all depends on how you look at it, you taught me that. it’s
how midway through singing which side are you on the truck hit me, but not fully.

always,
n

nicole v. basta

nicole v basta's poems have found homes in Ploughshares, Dream Pop, Heavy Feather, Birdfeast, Tinderbox, Ninth Letter, & elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbook V, the winner of The New School's Annual Contest. nicole is also a maker of collages, a teaching artist, a talker to plants & animals, and an Assistant Poetry Editor at ANMLY. Find more here: nicolevbasta.com.