[                                               ]

                        day is growing

sucking up all memory

            clumps of color,

the thin yellow shadows

            of voices

like stitches of a hem

snow on parked cars,

roaming cows in snow

each slow and small from the highway’s view

breakable like glass or eggs

[                                               ]

listening on the stairs

through a white curtain

            an old lover figure skating

there,              

                        she is so soft

watery flashes of bright blue

[                                               ]

suddenly                      people are walking their dogs

and purple cabbages are rolling around the thruway

suddenly          a spoon knocks a glass

            and an old horse starts swimming

through all this strange space

suddenly it’s raining again

            and there is your mouth

                                                            two, low bright birds

“[]” is a series of poems using found language. Pieces are drawn, in part, from Zoom meetings, phrases from Faulkner’s Light in August, and overheard conversations that took place at various places in upstate New York.

Emma Daley lives in New York’s Hudson Valley and is an assistant managing editor for MAYDAY magazine. She recently completed a poetry thesis at Bard College and, since, has studied at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, the Center for the Book Arts, and with writers Emily R. Hunt and Sheila Heti. She enjoys all things marine-related and is working toward a Masters in Library and Information Science.