cigarette smoke

by Kayla Jarppi

a box arrived in the mail—layered tape

securing its collapsing sides, her address

pasted to the top with purple glue: a care

package from Hammond, WI—contents

coated in cigarette smoke, sticky brown

staining the pages of an anxiety workbook,

the binding torn and worn. a cream sweater blotched

with yellow, hole in the sleeve. stickers reading future

pharmacist in pink bubble font—

maybe she’d know the difference

between a pharmacist and a psychologist

if she’d asked. and maybe she was trying to be nice

with the handwritten card she’d found at the

local bar—picture of a raised fist

patterned in the american flag on the front.

maybe she’d know the difference

between the fist of resistance and this fist

appropriated for conservative

nationalism—maybe she’d know the difference

between politics and basic fucking

human dignity if she’d taken the time

to know me, her queer daughter—

the words I love you fester

on the cardstock,

her signature sealed

with perfume

to mask

the smoke.

A recent graduate of Lawrence University, Kayla Jarppi is an interdisciplinary poet and scholar currently pursuing a PhD in Counseling Psychology. Often writing with unfiltered honesty, emotional vulnerability, and deep attention to the world and its injustices, Kayla’s poetry spans the personal, political, ecological, and theoretical.