Sonia Greenfield
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Sonia Greenfield (she/they) is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Letdown (White Pine Press, 2020) and Boy with a Halo at the Farmer's Market (Codhill Poetry Prize, 2015). Her chapbook, American Parable, won the 2017 Autumn House Press chapbook prize. Her forthcoming chapbook, Helen of Troy is High AF, will be out with Harbor Editions in January 2023, and her third full-length collection, All Possible Histories, will be out in December of 2022 with Riot in Your Throat. She lives with her family in Minneapolis where she teaches at Normandale College, edits the Rise Up Review, and advocates for both neurodiversity and the decentering of the cis/het white hegemony. More at soniagreenfield.com.


This Bitterness


Is a jar of honey found
at the back of the pantry 
 
& I can't say how long 
it's been there. I try 
 
the lid, but it's glued
shut with old sweetness, 
 
the honey granulated 
& dark. I try to turn 
 
the lid, but it won’t give. 
I whack it with a butter knife, 
 
but it's stuck tight. I run 
it under hot water but it 
 
doesn’t budge. I hand it 
to my man who gives it 
 
a go, but no. No way in 
knowing the door is a jar
 
sealed against my own 
best interest. I shove it 
 
to the back again & drink 
the tannins of my tea straight
 
while the honey hardens 
into a pillar of candy
 
enclosed in glass, a simple 
kindness I can't have.



​              




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