Poetry: Devotion by Gabrielle Grace Hogan
Stranging moments of romantic intimacies and distances, Gabrielle Grace Hogan brings us a poem full of unmirrored longings contained by the domestic image yet entirely new, given to the reader in unexpected renderings of the everyday.
Devotion
In the kitchen, chopping bell peppers
with my roommate’s knife. My lover waits
for me to sauté the vegetables. Night
unclasps its bra, lets itself spill out.
I must remove memory entirely. The bowl,
resinous with vinaigrette. My lover, looking
at the spot above my head. Later, in my mouth,
her shoulder, like water, accumulates.
There will always be a place for vicious
misunderstandings. Nostalgia is a balm.
My lover, she sees the time between us
as something passing her by.
I cannot ask more of her than this:
my lover has lips; they come to rest
at the spine of my eyelid, and because
I love her, I pretend I am already asleep.
Gabrielle Grace Hogan
Gabrielle Grace Hogan (she/her) recently received her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, through the New Writers Project. Her poetry has been published by or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, CutBank, Salt Hill, The Los Angeles Review, Grist, Poetry Northwest, Foglifter, and others. She is the author of two chapbooks, Love Me With the Fierce Horse of Your Heart (Ursus Americanus 2023) and Soft Obliteration (Ghost City Press 2020). In the recent past she has served as the Poetry Editor of Bat City Review, and as the Co-Editor/Co-Creator of You Flower / You Feast, a digital anthology of work inspired by Harry Styles. Her work can be found on her website gabriellegracehogan.com. She lives in Austin, Texas.
