Cammy Thomas
Riddles
What blocks breathing to protect breath?
What leaves a three-day residue on a table?
When do uncounted debts become unpayable?
When am I close enough to death?
How does fear attach itself to my hands, my feet?
Why is the doctor’s office more dangerous than home?
How is heroism staying indoors alone?
When do airplanes become obsolete?
When do exhalations almost become visible?
When can I hear only my voice in a choir?
Why is the beach forbidden when most desired?
Why must I learn to flee the invisible?
Where does boredom cross paths with dread?
When is my lover contagion instead?
—Submitted on
Cammy Thomas is the author of Inscriptions (Four Way Books, 2014) and Cathedral of Wish (Four Way Books, 2005), winner of the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. Her new collection, Tremors, is forthcoming from Four Way in 2021. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poet Lore, Image Journal, Tampa Review, The Missouri Review, and Salamander, as well as in the anthology Poems in the Aftermath (Indolent Books, 2018). She lives in Lexington, Mass.
SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.