The painting instructor said
white is really hard to improve
on; perfect blank of soaked and
stretched cold-pressed paper.
And of course a writer and the
white page. And what of those
who live in an other world. White
teeth of it. Transgression. How
does anyone dare speak? Why
would you? A voice can cut
morning to the quick. In a
house, there are invisible
knives, gouges, everywhere.


Priscilla Atkins lives in the Midwest, but in a past life shipped a small car to Hawaii and stayed ten years. Her studies have been at Smith College, the University of Hawaii, and Spalding University, where she earned her MFA. Her poems appear in Poetry London, Salmagundi, Shenandoah, and other journals and anthologies. Her latest love is The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard (Library of America, 2012).