GLACIER: TONE-DEAF KID
by Claire LeDoyen

i watched
this morning
brighter

as if study was a party

seismic calling
intercede and recede

on the expanse of hours

how can i do anything
but consider the city?

movements moving

hack away, dissipate
i thought you said you were an angel.
you were scared when i fought a demon.

threw his robes over me,
disappeared ghost of running kid
i’m sorry for your losses.
i’m sorry i don’t understand.

i play your voice cause it reminds me of home.


i play your voice. It reminds me of you.

they don’t understand it.

we don’t understand it.

are you sober?

on the phone
you were exclaiming

the prayers are starting to sound like music

did they never?
i was yelling how could you do me like that

and forget?

Claire “Scotty” LeDoyen (they/them) is a white person living in Richmond, Virginia, or rather Powhatan territory, and is originally from the Great Dismal Swamp area of Virginia, or Nansemond tribe land. A 2016 graduate from the Pratt Institute Creative Writing program, Claire interned that year at the performance studies publication Emergency Index at Ugly Duckling Presse. Their work has appeared in the Book Bloc: Critical Reactions to Racist Policing (2015), “FORCE/FIELDS” by Perennial Press, SLUG MAG and will be featured in the Kintsugi Press anthology of queer Southern writers, “We Make Our Own Light” in 2022.

Image by sapto7 at Pixabay.