Abecedarian for the Walking Woman

By Simone Muench and Jackie K. White

Alleys: never. Boulevard: maybe. But only in broad daylight.
Corners: not without a label. Dead end to end up dead.
Entrance: not without a fee. Fear? Always. on route to a gangplank.
Hill: where they found Heather's body. Into the garden: a flaming

sword swung against Eve. Near Joshua Tree: more bodies
and next to a knoll: a doll. Livid? Also always. when loathed
as marionettes in the morning; nowhere girls by night. 
Overlook: not without witnesses. Passageway, ripe 

with striations where ponytail or limbs were left, evidence
of trying a short-cut. Queue: movie, concert, or liquor
store, not without looking over your shoulder. Railway 
tracks: stitches will be needed. And no forest trails 

or tunnels for you. Underground: not without a few 
hey babys. And whether by valley or viaduct, you’ll need 
wings to bypass the xylophonic yelp from your own
throat. Wending: still not allowed. Yonder: always zip-tied.

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Simone Muench is a recipient of an NEA fellowship and author of several books, including Lampblack & Ash (Sarabande; winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize) and Wolf Centos (Sarabande). She’s an editor of They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing (Black Lawrence Press, 2018) and serves as a poetry editor for Tupelo Quarterly, advisor for Jet Fuel Review, poetry editor for JackLeg Press, and founder of the HB Sunday Reading Series.

Jackie K. White is the author of three previous chapbooks and the co-author, with Simone Muench, of Hex & Howl (Black Lawrence Press, 2021). Professor Emerita at Lewis University, her poems, translations, and collaborative poems have appeared in such journals as The American Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, Hypertext, Pleiades, and Shenandoah. 

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