21 June, 2023
Rub her tiny protruded belly in circles
and the sin will crawl out, fill a room
like prayer. Her first word is mine.
Do not let her use your heart
as a tool. You cannot take body
from her. You must keep her
alive, let her fatten up like a little disaster.
Under her coiled ribs beats a new tender
plan. If you bend deep enough
Hollie Dugas lives in New Mexico. Her work has been selected to be included in Barrow Street, Reed Magazine, Crab Creek Review, Redivider, Porter House Review, Pembroke, Salamander, Poet Lore, Watershed Review, Mud Season Review, Little Patuxent Review, The Louisville Review, The Penn Review, Chiron Review, Louisiana Literature, and CALYX. Hollie has been nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize and for inclusion in Best New Poets 2021. She has also been a finalist twice for the Peseroff Prize at Breakwater Review, Greg Grummer Poetry Prize at Phoebe, Fugue’s Annual Contest, and has received Honorable Mention in Broad River Review. Additionally, “A Woman’s Confession #5,162” was selected as the winner of Western Humanities Review Mountain West Writers’ Contest (2017). Most recently, her poem was selected as winner of the 22nd Annual Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize at CALYX, in addition to, the 2022 Heartwood Poetry Prize. She was also a finalist in the Atlanta Review’s 2022 International Poetry Contest. Currently, she is on the editorial board for Off the Coast.