Confessions

by Sandra Simonds

To answer your question, my biography cannot
explain empire. I was born and raised in a radium-
like structure. I grew cold cinders, lung fissures.
They say the heart is an open whatever.
All I have known is an open whatever.
On July 16th 2011, I gave up all my crushes
and hit the.
What? Darkness?
And waking to my own aubade, the sun
was a puny, stringy jellyfish
bracing itself for the vast ocean.

Sometimes, I collapsed but mostly
I survived. Survival was my wisdom.
I have revealed too much.

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About the Author:

Sandra Simonds is the author of The Sonnets (Bloof Books, 2014), Mother Was a Tragic Girl (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2012) and Warsaw Bikini (Bloof Books, 2008). Her poems have been anthologized in the Best American Poetry 2014 and 2015. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Granta, American Poetry Review, the Chicago Review, Fence and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor of English and Humanities at Thomas University in Thomasville, Georgia.