Daybreak

By J.J. STARR

Bend to me so that I may present my devotional whispers & gifts made from what bled
out the night before—my god, do not forsake me fragile as an eyelid

I could ask where does the pay check go if not into the cupboards?
but silence is my masterwork a child prodigy it could have been said.

Everything swims, a stranger stands before the house. Do not bite the hand that feeds,
we say this of dogs. We slept in a cold clean room pink as rats that homestead the trees or no—
she brushed me rough. She named me

—no dogs
allowed here, but some child tantrums under the elms, two lights crisscross the distance.

All I want to know is when
I will be remade into the holy thing.

J.J. Starr is a poet and writer based in Amherst, Massachusetts. She attended the New York University creative writing program, where she was a Veterans Writing Workshop Fellow. She has received support from Wesleyan University and the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. Her work can also be found in Drunken Boat, The Shallow Ends, Juked, and The Journal, among others.