Excerpt from

Woebegone

For your birthday, Woebe
I ordered a mattress
made of latex


Isn’t latex
a sexual
material, Nik



asks. You
are sitting on
my lap, Woebe



and the upstairs
neighbors are moving
away / gifting me plants



I have an office now
the size of a small living
room—you would



love to visit, if
only. Today
I sat



by the open
window in the air
conditioning



imagining you in
the closet behind
me, Woebe, peanut



butter and black
kitten but not
for long—July 8 (or



9) is your birthday.
In celebration, I am
writing you this song.


Claire Donato is most recently the author of Kind Mirrors Ugly Ghosts (Archway Editions, 2023). Her poetry booklet, Woebegone, is forthcoming from Theaphora this spring, along with an accompanying adventure-puzzle video game, Woebegone's Song, which she co-wrote. Claire works at Pratt Institute and is a candidate in psychoanalysis at the Psychoanalytic Training Institute of the Contemporary Freudian Society.