This very small

Anne Marie Rooney

         Secret in my. Am I a round wet
         O? Or am I something lower. He does not know
         what. I show him the place to. And then
             and    and   O. What is an O made of.
         And if I am. Do I gold myself? Is there another
         pocket to press? Preverbal O and licking
         O in my O God. Do I rain on like this is
         a very small? And if    then    and hotly O ing
         back to it and. I bite into this very small. And his mouth
         opening. Outside the window. I am a gold. Sachet
         of morning. The O is not. And his shoulders opening.
         In my mouth is a. I    and        unwiring and just.
         Is he folding    into a letter? Is    preverbal and am I.
         I lick the. The glue sticks to my.
         And when I bite I am hotly.
         When I leave I am hotly. I go out in a brown dress
         to tell. The smell of gingko on his. The absence of. I grow.

Anne Marie Rooney is an MFA candidate at Cornell University. She was selected by Li-Young Lee as the winner of the 2009 Iowa Review Award for poetry, and also recently won 2nd Place in Narrative Magazine's first annual poetry contest. Her work has appeared in Columbia, Pleiades, Ninth Letter, LIT, Subtropics, Bat City Review, the Best New Poets 2008 anthology, and elsewhere.