Honorable Mention for the 2021 Small Orange Emerging Woman Poet Honor

PORTRAIT OF THE ONLY CHILD AS BAD PENNY

The therapist listens to my autobiography and says

you are very resilient. Let me live up to that. The zodiac

gives me a poisonous tail and a hole in the ground

to keep my soft insides soft—let me be

as formidable, as balanced as all that. A bad tattoo

of a good idea: serpent destroying herself

back to life, let me satellite my head a little

to drink up one last punchline, a final squawk.

In deep winter, let me be the squirrel scrambling

up the jack pine and the snow sparkling down as it tries.

Give me a chance to come back again, weed that looks

like a flower that looks like a weed, insisting between

the brick pavers: I belong. Let me be the bad penny,

bronzed to oblivion, just north of worthless, tossed

on a nightstand. God, rid me of this loneliness. Multiply

me. Give me as much of myself as you can.

Born and raised in the Midwest, Caitlin Cowan’s poetry, fiction, and nonfiction has appeared in The Rumpus, New Ohio Review, Missouri Review, Denver Quarterly, SmokeLong Quarterly, Rappahannock Review, and elsewhere. She holds a Ph.D. in English and has taught writing at the University of North Texas, Texas Woman’s University, and Interlochen Center for the Arts. She currently serves as the Development Coordinator and Chair of Creative Writing at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. In her spare time, she writes about poetry and popular culture at PopPoetry. She lives on the west coast of Michigan with her partner and their two mischievous cats. Find her at caitlincowan.com.