Poetry by Greta Hayer

               ​Steve Johnson CC




We Are All Poorly Made

I’m watching the galaxies unveil their
hideous, old-woman faces.

It is that time of night.
A clockwork bird, an attic ghost, a mosquito, and me
in uncomfortable company.
We are all mistakes.

The bird is broken. She ticks
when she turns her head. To see everything
she peers with her lonely gem-stone eye.
The other was lost a long time ago.
We don’t talk about it.

The ghost was made from all the hopes of a household,
a reminder of regret.
It is aging poorly, like everything
else, fraying along its dreamy edges.

The mosquito, well,
mosquitos have always been a metaphor.
They were supposed to teach us to hate secrets. Instead
it loops in the air like a drunken diva.

I flicker in and out of connection.
I can barely breathe.
The constellations make me dizzy,
with their ugly, spinning heads.
Everything that exists cannot hold its balance. 


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​Greta Hayer received her MFA at the University of New Orleans and has work appearing or forthcoming in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Booth, Maudlin House, Cossmass Infinites, and Flint Hills Review. She received a bachelor's degree in history from the College of Wooster, where she studied fairy tales and medieval medicine. Her column, “In Search of the Dream World,” can be found at Luna Station Quarterly. She lives in New Orleans with her husband and their two alien cats.