Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is the author of Travesty Generator (Noemi Press, 2019), longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry, and How Narrow My Escapes (Diagram/New Michigan, 2019), Personal Science (Tupelo Press, 2016), a slice from the cake made of air (Red Hen Press, 2016), and But a Storm is Blowing from Paradise (Red Hen Press, 2012). Their next book, Negative Money, is forthcoming from Soft Skull Press.
Sept/Oct 2022
When my mother sees me with a new man
she sees me at seven, gouging out the mortar between our home’s brick with a screwdriver, and the family’s lineal fingerprints smeared into the doorframes of this last house