~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Sarah A. Etlinger

Response Management

My friends say I need to take a lot of things out of my poems

and they are right     but I keep asking myself how else     can I describe the feeling

of flour on the floor  under my feet     this fullness in my throat     these fires’ smoke

smudging across the sky     somewhere far away from me

and how I feel knowing there’s a word     for when dead whales fall     to the ocean floor

—whale fall—but not a word for the fact     that the female octopus, after mating

and laying her eggs     tears herself apart, piece by piece, over months—

and this image haunts my dreams

or how I feel knowing I will not     be able to say what it feels like     to live

in this middle-aged body     at this moment of late-stage capitalism     where every day

I’m reminded that everything is burning     even the dying elm tree on the corner

has burned all its tenderness     as it waits for its slow death—

and really what I want to say is that I can’t stop     thinking

about the limping fox     that used to visit my parents’ house,

how for months and months     we didn’t see it, until one day

there were glimpses     of orange and white     through the bare winter trees.

Sarah A. Etlinger is an English professor living with her family in Milwaukee, WI. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she is the author of 4 books, including A Bright Wound (Cornerstone Press, April 2024). Poems have appeared in Pithead Chapel, Rattle, Spoon River Poetry Review, and many others. Interests include cooking, baking, bird-watching, and spending time near Lake Michigan.