Devon Balwit
Devon Balwit teaches in Portland, Oregon. She has six chapbooks and three collections out or forthcoming, among them: We are Procession, Seismograph (Nixes Mate Books), Risk Being/Complicated (A collaboration with Canadian artist Lorette C. Luzajic); Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders); and Motes at Play in the Halls of Light (Kelsay Books). Her individual poems can (or will) be found in The Cincinnati Review, apt, Posit, The Carolina Quarterly, Vector Press; Red Earth Review; The Turnip Truck(s), Drylandlit; Eclectica, SWWIM, Peacock Journal, and more. See https://pelapdx.wixsite.com/devonbalwitpoet.
Each day older, a smolder in this spent body,
I wonder at my anger, this wish to stab somebody.
Tell me about the heft of righteousness
in the hand, the percussive wish
to draw blood. Recount the wince
savored on the palate, the sob
Repulsed,
I read his essay
about why it’s unnatural
for gays to marry, red pen poised. I am not
neutral, not objective. Speech is free, but so is judgment.
