Cloak

Catherine Graham

I hide my power in a cloak I hoard as anger.
My jaw gears like a charging bull;
hairs horn from my butting forehead.

“sky. There is no edge from which to hang
my plumb-line. No ledge on which to lay
my spirit-level. And you are outside piling logs,
working on your own wreckage.”
—Dorothy Molloy, Sobs rack my chest

I hide my power in a cloak I hoard as anger.
My jaw gears like a charging bull;
hairs horn from my butting forehead.

Stick of flame, I bring fresh heat
to a room like sun in sky. There is no edge
from which to hang
your escape. I whore surrender.

Not bad this giving up. No tit
for tat just a hit in the chest
where you slip between heartbeats.

Catherine Graham is the author of the poetry trilogy: Pupa, The Red Element, and Winterkill (2003, 2008, 2010, Insomniac Press). She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University and teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies.

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Cover image for Room Magazine Issue 49.2, Science. Art by Candace Cosentino of an old-fashioned computer monitor with a bounty of dandelions growing from it.

ROOM 49.2 SCIENCE

I hope this issue makes you curious and furious, leads to 2 a.m. Wikipedia rabbit holes, fulfills urges to seek out knowledge-keepers. Quickly or slowly, dive in: -ologies of all varieties await you.

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ROOM 49.1 No Future for Who?

In Room Magazine 49.1 No Future for Who?, we are really asking. We are coming in hot. We are causing a scene. We are being unreasonable. We are not fucking around. We are not taking “no” for an answer. “No” is the only word we still know. For who? For who? No.

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