Aubade For Bad Girls Who Rub Noses Together
Don’t let anyone
fool you, call woods more secret
than a peopled street—
(fracas in leaf-fall,
gossipy old brook babble,
fir trees who lunch)
your body, my god.
The sound of devotionals
coming right on home.
July Westhale is the award-winning author of two books of poetry (Via Negativa, and Trailer Trash, selected for the 2016 Kore Press Book Prize), two chapbooks (Quantifiable Data, and The Cavalcade), and the children’s book Occasionally Accurate Science. Her most recent poetry can be found in The National Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, CALYX, The Indianapolis Review, Vinyl, Tupelo Quarterly, RHINO, Lunch Ticket, and Quarterly West. Her essays have been nominated for Best American Essays and have appeared in McSweeney’s, Autostraddle, and The Huffington Post. She has received fellowships from Writing by Writers, the University of Arizona Poetry Center, and the Lambda Literary Foundation. www.julywesthale.com