Gemma Cooper-Novack

one poem

She takes a Lyft or something

August harbor nights still chill her but she watched
the brides wrap each others' shoulders with arms and legs with skirts
they glowed in pier light and inside black water

Inside this Lyft or whatever she bristles like aged upholstery
she baked gluten-free cake they adorned with babies' travelling shoes
they are so young and leather and gluten-free but with no jam between layers
it's just that it's gross when it soaks into the cake

On glass edges of what was theirs they held each other and the August
harbor blew over them and rippled at their feet
she's hurling through white-tile racketeered tunnels and they braided
rainbow ribbons into rope and knotted them around their hands

She used coconut frosting and didn't layer sliced strawberries even though
they would have been so good

Gemma’s debut poetry collection We Might As Well Be Underwater (Unsolicited Press, 2017) was a finalist for the CNY Book Award. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in more than twenty journals; her plays have been produced across the United States. She is a 2016 Deming Fund grantee and a doctoral candidate in literacy education at Syracuse University.