“{marginalia} bartering lessons,” by Valerie Witte (forthcoming in issue 22)

I gave up stories, shuttering / dogs to nurture

bodies to belong to small things I can keep; they take

up very little space but oversized rooms, furniture

what’s a basement or a yard if not for hoarding / if

houses let you go unfulfilled in exchange offer

an abundance of redwood, tile or the like employed

in an overlapping series of compromises held

to terms and I’m bound, a settlement by concession

endangered as a skirt is vulnernable / the underside

exposed / erosion or a weathering hoped for / I traded

love for casement: the simple perception of hue

value and saturation / water, tables / in turn we live

with strangers and do not expect affection pressing

against a building / remains of swag forms: intercourse

I need bartering lessons / to cheat the rolling

mechanism we learn to give up for radiating / glazing

bars stripped / metal bent and stretched to fit

any circumstance / a channel to catch

and carry companionship / I never knew I’d have only

one chance when we let go a recess opened

I’ll always distinguish yours from all the other faces