by Kat Yeary
When I was manic for a long time,
Einstein’s disembodied head
came out of the wall and explained
the architecture of consciousness to me.
Only took him an afternoon.
He walked me right up
to the first thought,
which was a feeling
we couldn’t find the word for.
To me it looked like a drum made
of a living skin, with a high efficiency
light bulb in it. And it was breathing.
I laid down on it and felt it beat through me.
I felt it say,
It didn’t have any purpose.
Afterwards,
I wrote several thousand dollars
in bad checks
because my new god
couldn’t conceive of debt.
Kat Leary
Kat Yeary lives in New York City with her wife and family. As well as a writer, she is a software engineer, and she worked and toured for a number of years as a stand-up comedian. She studied at Bennington College.
JC Alfier
JC Alfier’s (they/them) artistic directions are informed by photo-artists Toshiko Okanoue, Deborah Turbeville, Francesca Woodman, and especially Katrien De Blauwer. Their most recent poetry book, The Shadow Field, was published by Louisiana Literature Press (2020). Journal credits include The Brooklyn Review, Faultline, Notre Dame Review, Penn Review, River Styx, and Vassar Review.