STICKY KEYS

It’s not my fault, this click
it’s whoever invented money, it’s their fault!

Money made up what to say and when to say what
which is news to me
at wits end. Oxygen, oxygen

no punctuation. Breath
the ultimate self-referential line
permanent easement

I’m good at holding breath because of my years
of expensive swimming. Working out
something in the lane. I would sing sometimes

on my back. These were my friends
I didn’t care then, my parents paid
for me to be there, outside in the early morning

complaining, half-assing

HAPPY LAMP

Pace so relative, calendar
the messages answer and I believe them and the signs say

BETTER ANGELS SOCIETY

WALL LAKE

LAZY RIVER

OUTLET CREEK

THIGMOTROPIC

NO CHILL

sugar cookies, churn, work
ethic, shock value,
my happy lamp,

focus, fix us.

Margaret Yapp is the author of Green for Luck (EastOver Press, 2024). She runs Rampage Party Press works as Managing Editor of Prompt Press, and is Managing Director of PorchLight Literary Center. She has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an MFA in Book Arts from the Center for the Book. She lives in Iowa City.