Ann Chadwell Humphries
To Conquer A Culture of Likes
I hereby attest to advantages accorded me
by algorithms of inheritance
affix my seal
check the boxes of identity.
I had no say in my birth
claim no domain
over how my lungs fill
nor my heart pumps
nor the passage of time.
I choose to set a new calculus
sit with unlike company
click different likes on devices
encourage verbs like risk
and comply
to wrestle like brothers.
Break my house of mirrors
crack the hard casing of same-same-same
pull from winter closets resolve grown limp
by not asking enough of it or myself.
I pledge to polish my curiosity
like fine silver
play my hand by questioning
bend my stiff neck to understand.
Ann Chadwell Humphries’s have appeared in Jasper Magazine and on The Comet, the bus system of the Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority in Richland and Lexington counties in the Columbia metropolitan area of South Carolina (an initiative of Columbia’s inaugural poet laureate, Ed Madden). Winner of a 2017 Into the Fire scholarship from The Sun magazine and recipient of a Jasper Magazine Emerging Voice award, she lives and writes in Columbia, SC.
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