By Maria Dylan Himmelman

sharpen knives with their teeth, adjust their shawls
to hide their tails and make tiny feather quilts
to keep the birds warm. They char quail eggs
with their breath, serve them on bone China
with sucking candies, then ask if you’re certain
you turned the stove off before you left the house
Their closets are filled with carpets and spice, bolts
of silk and roast chicken. Their medicine chests
are stuffed with opium, hemlock and baby aspirin
In response to most questions they say—
Turn it, turn it, for all is in it, and for this it is said
their price is far above pearls 

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Maria Dylan Himmelman’s first collection, Sundry Abductions (Hanging Loose 2023) won the First Annual Founders Award. Her recent work has appeared in Plume, Poetry Daily, Image, Notre Dame Review, Berlin Lit and Nimrod.