Joanna C. Valente is a ghost who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (The Operating System, 2017), Xenos (Agape Editions, 2016), and Sexting Ghosts (Unknown Press, 2018). They are the editor of A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault (CCM, 2017), and received a MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Joanna is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, a managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM, as well as an instructor at Brooklyn Poets. Some of their writing has appeared in Brooklyn Magazine, BUST, Them, Prelude, Apogee, Spork, The Feminist Wire, and elsewhere.
Read MorePoetry By Emily Corwin
you felt me, you left me—moaning open in a landslide. I harden like grease
and there’s glimmer. the saplings anxious for ripping, cleaved the way you
like it. let’s say: you’re the woodsman and I am a girl, slipping in a magician
box, my bra cups filling out—buttermilk, tiny bow in the middle. you wield
a saw, a tremor—sung like choirs, biting through.