The Spoons Are Bent in the Jar

By Ryan Di Francesco

The woman I don’t

recognize

is back in my bed.

She quotes Tolstoy.

Tells me people are on earth

to feel love

from people.

I tell her

I don’t understand.

You never will.

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Ryan Di Francesco (he/him) is a neurodivergent Canadian writer, teacher, and Editor-in-Chief of Shadow & Sax Press. His journalism has appeared in The Toronto Star, and his poetry and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in ExPat Press, Acta Victoriana, Pacific Review, Poetry Pause, Superpresent, Pinhole Poetry, Jagged Edge, Apple Valley Review, and elsewhere. He is the author of the chapbooks Mirage of Burning Things (Parlyaree Press), Skeleton Mine Disaster (Bottlecap Press), and The Paper Hound and Canadian Classic (Alien Buddha Press). His forthcoming collections are Along Tongues Full of Time (Ethel Press) and Let the Dogs Have It (Parlyaree Press).