ADMONITION

Me on any given
Tuesday, remaking
your memory
in gold leaf foil,
costuming you
as stars and their
little lightyear
disappearing act—
cliche’s worst crime
is being too true,
but truth deserves
some shame
for its lack of loyalty—
I have my fill
of the coffee interstitial
before taking you on
like a motto,
hear you in the word
unlatched, though
I’m light-footed now
in giving misery
the slip
(at what point did we
hold the silence hostage
in wish-filled darkness?)
behind death’s veil lies
the juiciest gossip—
cliche reaching its
critical velocity,
shakes off its letters,
doesn’t need my

reserves of longing
to make words mean

Emily Hunerwadel is the author of the chapbook Peach Woman, selected by Doublecross Press for their Bound-Together contest, and Professional Crybaby, selected by Kyle Dargan for the Poetry Society of America’s 2017 Chapbook Fellowship. They won Columbia Journal’s 2019 Fall Poetry Contest, judged by Monica Sok, and their work has been featured by the Academy of American Poets, Bustle, Fonograf Editions, and the Vassar Review, among others. Born and raised in the Deep South, Hunerwadel works as a book designer and writer in Western Massachusetts.