Poetry by Kendra Nuttall

                          Holly Lay CC



​Interior Design

There’s calm in headaches,
like a winter hug, wind
bursting with morning sick.

I don’t want to be Mom,
I already killed my Venus
fly trap with a cruel joke.

I’ve tried to stop the clock,
but where would I be
without the constant tick
of the bathroom faucet
reminding me nothing lasts

forever? I only open
calendars to see the pictures.
There’s August,
sweet summer child,
sitting in her midcentury chair
made modern again.





Honey Bear

I’m finding the gap
between the stove and counter

for the first time. Like a forgotten
spam folder, everything is piling up.

Walmart receipts in my front seat;
dust bunnies reminding me

of the cat I didn’t hold
as she went to sleep

for the last time;
the high school yearbooks

I say I don’t care about, but
here they are packed into boxes

again. I say I’m ready to move on,
but how much stuff

can one really fit into a box?
How many licks does it take

to get to the center of a tootsie
pop? I don’t like tootsie pops.

I don’t like tootsie rolls.
I like Tootsie and Jessica Lange.

Who doesn’t like Jessica Lange?
I digress.

There’s a jar of honey
shaped like a bear

sitting on the counter
next to the gap. 

If food could talk,
which I’m glad it cannot,

Honey Bear would say
“you’re going to be okay.”

And maybe
that would be enough.

Kendra Nuttall is a copywriter by day and poet by night. Her work has appeared in Spectrum, Capsule Stories, Chiron Review, and Maudlin House, among others. She lives in Utah with her husband and poodle. Her debut book, A Statistical Study of Randomness, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Find her online at kendranuttall.com.

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