KT Herr

Improv

First I’m scorched earth & then
forever after I’m brook-choked-with-ash. Even

 
when I’m spring meadow I’m still
sooty-snow-pile-behind-Sam’s-Club or if I’m lucky

 
just leaf-blower-ruckus-up-the-street. The producer
grumbles into his bowl of soup. I say

 
please, another chance, please.
I leave home & then I’m

 
lamb-lost-in-the-Milky-Way. I’m Renata Tebaldi
chained-smoked out of her vibrato. Or run it back & first

 
I’m tattletale, then renegade. Then recess protest
mud-&-berries-under-the-tree-house sous chef. Then

 
Doc-Martins-ten-necklaces-&-books-under-
the-bleachers. Bad-big-sister. Then twice in a row

 
my ghost light gets left burning
on a stage swept clean of love

 
& I’m cold-all-the-time, I’m sleeps-
twelve-hours-a-night-in-her-Radiohead-hoodie.

 
I make it to Act Two, where I end up fries-or-a-salad.
Tacky cabaret. Cucumbers-over-the-eyes-

 
like-coins. Loser-at-the-bar lookout. For years I’m
are-you-pregnant-you’re-glowing?-No-just-fat. For years

 
I’m dirty-lime-slice: browned lips around a green grin.
I’m cocaine-but-only-if-someone-else-is-buying.

 
I was sure someday I’d play coffee-commercial-warm-hands-
sliding-under-morning-t-shirt but instead I grew into

 
no-hands-stay-the-night. For safety, you understand. The fist-
ripping-my-jeans scenes come with endless encores. Still,

 
again. Say freeze. Tap me out. I didn’t want to play
product-of-my-upbringing. Daughter-of-broken-

 
marriage. I ran from the role but the role
ran after me. The producer keeps saying

 
we should stop the show but someone in the wings replies
why bother? Says there’s no one in the seats.

 
I shrug, lock the doors, cue up The Bee Gees. Hello, I’m
survival-as-dance-solo. You-can-tell-by-the-way-I. Yes, and

KT Herr (she/her/hers) is a queer poet, songwriter, and curious person, with poems published or forthcoming in Dream Pop, Frontier, Quarter After Eight, and others. KT was a 2019 Pabst Fellow at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, as well as a Jane Cooper Fellow and Thomas Lux Scholar at Sarah Lawrence College (MFA 2020), where she worked as a teaching artist in Queens, coordinated workshops for incarcerated writers in Valhalla, and served as co-director of the 2020 Sarah Lawrence Poetry Festival. Currently, she is a publishing intern with Black Lawrence Press and teaches poetry through the West Tisbury Public Library.

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