Annmarie O'Connell

Bio: Annmarie O’Connell is a lifelong resident of the south side of Chicago. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, The American Journal of Poetry, Sixth Finch, Juked, Room Magazine, Verse Daily, Slipstream, SOFTBLOW, Vinyl Poetry, Thrush, Escape Into Life, 2River View and many other wonderful journals. Her first full-length collection of poems, Your Immaculate Heart, was released with Trio House Press in 2016. Her fifth chapbook, "63rd Street Devotional" was published this year with Voice Lux Journal.

Yesterday is a Gap

between a mancrying into my bodyabout his wife shooting herselfin the garage and a dusty spotin the corner of the dark. Today he loves his wife the way I don’t love anything. The tiny kernels of God burningbetween my teethI am still afraid to bite.Whole cities begin in this confusion,this longing for the truth. I know the snowis white and falling. I know I would give youmy eyes for your face.I know I regret my life,its beautiful hillsblending together with water and sponge.I didn’t invent the damp on my feetblack from highwaysstretching through the portraitof my life. If I knew how to blossomI would have. I am sorry to tell you: everyday I splinter with love calmer than the weatherbut what should come home to me? The landscape shuns all the spring in mebut God records & recordsthen gladdens this cityMercy ricochets our heartsto the heavenly wheel

Did You Think of Me When Justin Townes Earle Died?

At first I thought of heroin& the way I laughedat the sight of you shining Lotus white with ten petalsfawning all over yourselfcopping dope on the West Side. Triangular & so suburbanI first told you to get out of my tracks. More differences between us:a mother & a father decked with various ornamentsbailing you out& above that hearts clothed with powerto create but also to destroy the south side bad girl raging in the center of mepoorly dressed, poorly fed,backed into a chain fence. What's the use burningin the middle of the day?What's the use moaninglike a thousand beggarsif you are frightened by the soundof my hunger? The day my son called you dadyou disappearedwith great leaps-a herd of gazelles. Gazelles get so luckyshedding the heavinessof earth. Me I tried to love and I failed.I put my heart on a shelf.


Terror is still beauty on the path that got me nowhere. I was sentencing myselfto death long before I knew you.When I was 18 I almost died twice in the same weekbut i stuck around like leftovers on the stove, trash in my Mama's grave. After you left I criedin her gamblers hat.I wish I treated her better And never took a drink. I want to tell you two things you will act like you know: A bullet is something you can't get back. A herd of gazelles barely touch the floorwhen they bolt.

When his father left

the flowerbeds died.We put them in the groundtogether, our hearts blooddripping on the petals,spraying on the dusty rocks.Three gardens totalI have lost to men.The Sun’s schedule adjusts its warmth by the hour.Let the deadwhir past my face, let me mournbeauty. I lived for 2 months with wartwisting in my veins.My baby was slain in the square for two years,his yellow hair burning.I forgot about water. I forgot how to makea path from here to there. My baby’s navelmade me cry. My baby had wind in his hairand kept blowing.He still sleeps nakedin his bed. The clouds in his ceilinghold me. Every night I go crawlingand press him like a petalin the footnoteof my poems.

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