Emily Marie Passos Duffy is the author of Hemorrhaging Want & Water (perennial press, 2023). She is a co-founder of Working Girls Press, a collaborative press dedicated to publishing and paying sex worker writers and artists. She lives in Lisbon with her orange cat and walks about 20,000 steps on a good day. You can receive monthly letters from her at duffylala.substack.com
01. Horse Girl
You call me late one night and ask if I can
Keep a secret
Of course. I’m already keeping mine.
I am listening to Nina Simone, knowing that the “other woman”
Is a construct designed to make women hate themselves
You ask me to rehearse what I’d say if a strange number called me
Asking who I am
And how do I know you
I would say, I’m not allowed to break
Patient confidentiality
Good, you say.
I ask, how much would I have to pay you to break my heart
To my delight, you say you’ll do it for free
There’s something you should know:
When I was young, I wanted a horse so bad
I’d wake up at dawn
And take a pitchfork to frozen compost in the backyard
I mucked an imaginary stall
Cracking the thin layer of frost over the pile like the fat
Bottom of a spoon to crème brûlée
My breath in clouds my knuckles white
I loved the idea of having a horse
02. Barnacle
Who hasn’t been guilty
of letting something go
On longer than it should have
Six years
Says the rugby player
As he cracks my back in private
He digs a hand in my scapula
And says “breathe”
I lean back
And he tells me about his divorce
I look at photos
Of us together
And my smile doesn’t
Reach my eyes
Branched anterior region
Network head of clinging
To the rock I left myself on
If not
In this lifetime
Maybe the next
of letting something go
On longer than it should have
Six years
Says the rugby player
As he cracks my back in private
He digs a hand in my scapula
And says “breathe”
I lean back
And he tells me about his divorce
I look at photos
Of us together
And my smile doesn’t
Reach my eyes
Branched anterior region
Network head of clinging
To the rock I left myself on
If not
In this lifetime
Maybe the next