AM Ringwalt

Issue Three

[Look, I write about what I]

Look, I write about what I Do not

give myself. The ocean Is a world

in which you do not Need a job.

Money is a thing That eats and

eats. How long— The waiting—I

could taste the sea And say

something about 

Suffering. Not you. You fled

Before the sky turned gray and

Now I stare, obtuse. I’ll go back

To work—I know— before I go

Somewhere else. Look: the

Water snaking.

******************************************************************

[The day opens like a wave.] 

For Laia

The day opens like a wave. I

am not a victim. What is the

feeling of the sun. What, the

earth beneath my feet. I was

asked to imagine all the layers

below me: concrete, thatched

roof, terrace, air, concrete,

soil, shit, but what’s below

that. I was asked to do all

kinds of things and mostly felt

the air move through me. I

was told to write a mono-

syllabic fairytale about a

grandmother and her daughter.

I called them the old girl and

the girl-girl. Death is a

one-syllable word. Dirt. My

body is situated upon these

layers going down, latticed or

spiraling, and wouldn’t you

like to see ants on lace. I’m

trying to tell you: the sun

doesn’t hold me in place.


About AM Ringwalt
AM Ringwalt is a writer and musician whose work appears in Jacket2, Music & Literature and Black Warrior Review. Called "rich with emotion" by Pitchfork and "arresting" by FLOOD, Summer Angel is out now on Dear Life Records. Ringwalt holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Notre Dame, where she received the 2019 Sparks Prize. The Wheel, her hybrid memoir, was published by Spuyten Duyvil. What Floods is forthcoming from Inside the Castle.