unbodied poem in which the speaker reconsiders non-lineated, minisculated entitlement, by which they enter a minor house of sorts, where apple and table are humble, as of still life, and in the interest of triangulation i approach them, but there was a wrongness about it, the red and brown tableau, the blending of tenses, mixing of mediums, arias overhead, how the speaker dissolved into an eye, an i from which we honor collective space, abstraction accompanied me, a worm upheld me, it emerged from its house of apple, the aspect of everything was small, warm, flamelike and kind, the way my true eye color took up a revolutionary cause, ripped out its boutonniere, and we nursed a candle in the bell of the reader’s ear

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from According to the Plat Thereof–published by Ethel Zine

Buy it here

(Poem also previously appeared in Always Crashing)

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Alex Tretbar is a Midwestern writer and abolitionist. He is also the author of the chapbook Kansas City Gothic (Broken Sleep, 2025), and works in the Center for Digital and Public Humanities at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he is currently studying the archive of early issues of New Letters (1934-1951) and assisting with the Kansas City Monuments Coalition.