<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/nicolette-daskalakis.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="680" src="https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/nicolette-daskalakis-1024x680.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-49701" srcset="https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/nicolette-daskalakis-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/nicolette-daskalakis-300x199.jpg 300w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/nicolette-daskalakis-768x510.jpg 768w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/nicolette-daskalakis-600x399.jpg 600w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/nicolette-daskalakis.jpg 1100w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image: &#8220;Eat Me&#8221; by <a href="http://www.nicolettedaskalakis.com/">Nicolette Daskalakis</a>. “Placebo” was written by Jill M. Talbot for <em>Rattle’</em>s Ekphrastic Challenge, November 2018, and selected as the Artist&#8217;s Choice.</figcaption></figure><div class="line">Coffee for headache, grapefruit for heartache,</div>
<div class="line">blue for the weather and red for forgiveness;</div>
<div class="line">hopelessness&#8211;may I suggest a bubblegum flavor?</div>
<div class="line">Not all nutrtional lists cover psychic benefit.</div>
<div class="line">Jung prescribed lemon for neurosis;</div>
<div class="line">psychosis requires a dash of red pepper.</div>
<div class="line">Plug your nose and wear swimming goggles,</div>
<div class="line">be sure to pose and photograph—</div>
<div class="line">share on instagram. As for existential despair:</div>
<div class="line">some things still need to be left to cats.</div>
<div class="line">Thanks for shopping with McFuture.</div>
<div class="line">May we suggest you use your plastic bag</div>
<div class="line">as a face mask?</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/TalbotPlacebo.mp3"></audio></figure>

At Night My Father Does Not Sing

Ekphrastic Challenge

Jesus Is My Flu Shot

Placebo

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/melody-carr.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="684" src="https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/melody-carr-1024x684.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50143" srcset="https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/melody-carr-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/melody-carr-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/melody-carr-768x513.jpg 768w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/melody-carr-600x401.jpg 600w, https://admin.rattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/melody-carr.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image: “Through the Looking Glass” by&nbsp;<a href="https://theoracleoferror.com/">Melody Carr</a>. “Your Favorite Writer Is Not Your Mother” was written by&nbsp;<a href="https://jodget.wixsite.com/jilltalbot">Jill M. Talbot</a>&nbsp;for&nbsp;<em>Rattle’</em>s Ekphrastic Challenge, April 2018, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.</figcaption></figure><p class="epil">All writers are exiles wherever they live and their work is a lifelong journey towards the lost land.<br />—Janet Frame</p>
<div class="line">Just because she looks</div>
<div class="line">Like you, or looks like</div>
<div class="line">Your mother, that does</div>
<div class="line">Not make your favorite</div>
<div class="line">Writer your mother. Just</div>
<div class="line">Because she slept with</div>
<div class="line">Bones, was misdiagnosed</div>
<div class="line">With the same lucid</div>
<div class="line">Dreams, or swallowed</div>
<div class="line">The same blue pills.</div>
<div class="line">Just because she lived</div>
<div class="line">In little houses or had</div>
<div class="line">Siblings die young, or</div>
<div class="line">Finds odd things funny.</div>
<div class="line">Just because she had</div>
<div class="line">Unbearable hair and teeth.</div>
<div class="line">Just because you planted</div>
<div class="line">A turtle under a rock.</div>
<div class="line">Just because there’s a photo</div>
<div class="line">Of a hospital, of weeds</div>
<div class="line">Growing out of eyes.</div>
<div class="line">Just because you don’t have</div>
<div class="line">A better half. Just because</div>
<div class="line">You’re a quarter the way</div>
<div class="line">Home. None of this</div>
<div class="line">Makes your favorite writer</div>
<div class="line">Your mother.</div>
<div class="line">Just ask her.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/TalbotWriter.mp3"></audio></figure>

Europa

The Last Toothbrush

Your Favorite Writer Is Not Your Mother

<div class="line">The pope is sorry, Mark</div>
<div class="line">Zuckerberg is sorry, Starbucks</div>
<div class="line">Is sorry. Hell, even Obama</div>
<div class="line">Is sorry. The ocean’s sorry,</div>
<div class="line">The sun is sorry, the polar</div>
<div class="line">Bears are sorry, the otter</div>
<div class="line">Living under your house is</div>
<div class="line">Sorry. The hairdresser is</div>
<div class="line">Sorry, the window cleaner</div>
<div class="line">Is sorry. The spider who bit</div>
<div class="line">You is sorry. Skeletons in</div>
<div class="line">The desert are sorry. The NRA</div>
<div class="line">Is sorry, the Titanic is sorry.</div>
<div class="line">Justin Trudeau is sorry. The</div>
<div class="line">Plastic surgeon is sorry,</div>
<div class="line">Barbie is sorry. Killer</div>
<div class="line">Robots are sorry.</div>
<div class="line">The spider you</div>
<div class="line">Swallowed</div>
<div class="line">While you were</div>
<div class="line">Sleeping</div>
<div class="line">Is sorry.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/TalbotMoon.mp3"></audio></figure>

The Beautiful Particulars

Poets Respond

Legend

I’m Sorry, Moon

<p class="stanza"><em>Do you still believe it’s intelligent life we ought to avoid?</em></p>
<div class="line1">This is a silent poem. Every letter</div>
<div class="line1">is silent, every word is silent, every</div>
<div class="line1">line is silent, every stanza is silent.</div>
<div class="line1">Even the stanza breaks are silent.</div>
<p class="stanza"><em>Are poets as useless as philosophers?</em></p>
<div class="line1">This is a silent painting. Since you</div>
<div class="line1">don’t know what you could be missing,</div>
<div class="line1">you don’t know what you could see.</div>
<div class="line1">That’s what silence is.</div>
<p class="stanza"><em>Do black holes take library books?</em></p>
<div class="line1">Maybe they’ve taken all of the noise</div>
<div class="line1">from the silent letters. Maybe they’ve</div>
<div class="line1">taken the library books. Maybe they’ve</div>
<div class="line1">taken heaven from atheists.</div>
<p class="stanza"><em>Are atheists afraid of the dark?</em></p>
<div class="line1">This is a poem for people afraid of</div>
<div class="line1">the light, afraid of the silence of the dark.</div>
<div class="line1">Fairy tales were made to terrify, not</div>
<div class="line1">comfort.</div>
<p class="stanza"><em>If a robot asks me out, do I say yes?</em></p>
<div class="line1">In the future there may be silent</div>
<div class="line1">roosters, and nobody will know</div>
<div class="line1">what they’re missing.</div>
<div class="line1">A silent man seems attractive,</div>
<div class="line1">in the meantime.</div>
<p class="stanza"><em>If the elephant in the room dies, do you have a funeral?</em></p>
<div class="line1">This is not a protest poem. It’s just</div>
<div class="line1">an image. It’s just the silence that</div>
<div class="line1">occurs between neurons firing,</div>
<div class="line1">putting what was upside-down</div>
<div class="line1">right-side up. You can only protest</div>
<div class="line1">death once it’s already in the room,</div>
<div class="line1">taking up all the silent space.</div>
<p class="stanza"><em>If we meet in heaven will you avoid me? Will you declare it all a bad dream or a good dream? Will we drink rum and coke or virtue?</em></p>
<div class="line1">Happily ever after was only</div>
<div class="line1">a mutation.</div>
<p class="stanza"><em>Will you take a look at my theory of nothing?</em></p>
<div class="line1">That&#8217;s okay, it was the silence</div>
<div class="line1">I was after.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/TalbotHawking.mp3"></audio></figure>

Hands

This Is a Rhyming Poem

Questions for Stephen Hawking

<div class="line">Should I feel shame crossing off</div>
<div class="line">the Caucasian box? White is the least </div>
<div class="line">honest color of all—I am not white—</div>
<div class="line">I am shame. I am ashamed of</div>
<div class="line">this box, this paint-by-numbers</div>
<div class="line">diversity quiz. I could be a dyke?</div>
<div class="line">Where’s the box for dead mother?</div>
<div class="line">Where’s the box for adoption?</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">Identity confused: please call</div>
<div class="line">Governor for report—where’s</div>
<div class="line">the box for junkie—for warrior</div>
<div class="line">gene? For should have been aborted?</div>
<div class="line">Where’s the box for mentally unfit?</div>
<div class="line">Where’s the box for asexual </div>
<div class="line">wannabe? Where’s the space </div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">for the time I got stitches and thought</div>
<div class="line">it was the best thing that ever happened</div>
<div class="line">to me—I was twelve. Stitches were</div>
<div class="line">my identity. How they kept the white</div>
<div class="line">out. Oozing red onto a dishcloth.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">I thought I found God. </div>
<div class="line">She was white like me. </div>
<div class="line">I was twelve. </div>
<div class="line">I was twelve.</div>
<div class="line">I was twelve.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">I got a McFlurry </div>
<div class="line">with all of the flavors.</div>
<div class="line">Just like my mother. </div>
<div class="line">White like me.</div>
<div class="line">Dead like me.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/TalbotDiversity.mp3"></audio></figure>

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April 15, 2018I’m Sorry, MoonJill M. Talbot

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April 15, 2018I’m Sorry, MoonJill M. Talbot

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