Author: Kay Kennett

I hold a Bachelor’s degree in English and Women’s & Gender Studies from Wheaton College (MA). There, I published several poems in the campus literary magazine, Rushlight, performed in poetry readings and slams, and won the Helen Meyers Tate Memorial Prize for Original Verse. Additionally, I published in the online magazines Curbside Splendor and Atticus Review. In my early adult life, I have not pursued creative writing professionally, but rather landed in the field of Marketing & Communications, writing outreach and educational content for nonprofit organizations and schools. I am very involved in civic and community activities, particularly within Education and the Arts. I currently teach enrichment classes to K-5 students, tutor high school students in English/Language Arts, and manage social media and email marketing for a handful of nonprofit and small business clients. Find my full worker identity at LinkedIn. Some other identities that are important to me: only child, child of a single father, working class, tenth-generation (New England) American, first-generation college graduate, living with mental illness, bisexual. Thank you for reading.

The Editor

.Reading time 1 minute.

Turn the knob, he said.
Don’t be a stranger.
Come in.
Have a seat.
Allow me
to pull out your chair
to pin up your hair
to —
introduce yourself, I said.
Don’t be pedantic.

Not I, he said.
Haven’t you met a true Romantic?
    I fear thy mien, thy tone, thy motion,
thou needest not fear mine;
innocent is the heart’s devotion,
   with which I worship thine.

May I have a drink?
Just water, he said.
No wine.
On second thought,
you’re fine.
    Here lies one whose name was writ in water. 

In order to catch up,
with the spirit of the times,
I indulged this verbal eroticism,
tracing the vowels
of Shelley and Keats
back onto him.

I veiled my conceit,
in a deep-twin sheet,
and introduced myself
to The Editor.

Heartlines

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Published by Atticus Review at http://atticusreview.org/the-trees-issue/

If                                  I should die before I wake, lay me ‘neath

a tree                          where  lichen grows in whiskers, for I

fell in                          love with a stubbled chin that trailed

the forest                   across my collar, up-over my mounds,

and no one was        allowed to cut pink slippers, he said,

around                        here, the Lady is scarce as hen’s teeth

to hear it                     mark your drums with turpentine, but

did it make                 sense to recluse into romance, to build

a sound                      heart for two?

Kelsey

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

For Kelsey Hoffman
DSC01558
meaning
“from the ship’s island,”
which is the one, let’s say,
that draws people in,
like the eyes of a lady,
with their fine lines
and fine-tuned vision,
which some people call
experience; that tames
wanderlust, in women,
especially, by just asking:
“Would you like to moor?”
straightforward and sure,
so unlike their main men
from the mainlaind,
who take perpetual availability
for permission to go
…radio silent…
She is tiller of victory gardens,
where grow autonomy
for her people,
who are all people,
and also vegetables
like: red peppers,
white corn,
blue hubbard squash,
or whatever color,
they ask
to be
drawn in.

Father’s Day

.Reading time 1 minute.

Oh, what a day
to get out
with the sun
no, not up
that too easy
waking is
very normal and very common
an action that requires no will
unlike working
which 66% do at-will
in exchange for small change
and less development of skill
that too hard
treating people like people is
very abnormal and very uncommon

On Sundays,
father gets out
just for fun
no, not church
that too easy
praying is
very close to talking on the phone
with someone who takes efficiency
…very seriously…
like his boss’s boss
or the call out with a sick kid
in exchange for 2 days of rest
counting Sunday
except this one
being a holiday

I get out
despite rain clouds
in spite of depression
because I get it
how my burned daylight
could be conflated
with disrespect
for parents who work
for every father in my lineage
especially Dad
who still puts in overtime
for no pay
but the security
that his job is safe
thereby his house is safe
should there ever come
a sick kid
knocking
to come in.

Expectation vs Reality

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

DSC02202
What are we trying to do
with the word picnic?
Take a regular lunch,
and paint it red.
Red as the veins
of ketchup,
that snake the backs
of spineless dogs.
Red as the tulips
that propagate
themselves,
when gardeners forget
to put out their bulbs
… until after Christmas.
What is a date
without Blood of Flowers?
A bottle of Rosé
to keep the reality at bay,
that we are showing
our private hearts
in public parts;
trying to figure
each other out
of a wicker basket,
and eat.
Where are the wild things?
Ants, to make us dance,
in our pants,
A bear to make us
piss them.
Without the hokey pokey,
What is a picnic all about?