Long Distance Aubade

I take the vibrator off my clit and gather my lake.
I catch it in a towel. Soon, construction will start
outside my window, when the workers will drill
through the pavement to reach the sewage.
So much attention to the shit of this world.
So many men, right outside my window,
worried about shit. The man in the excavator
will play country music on blast, the rest
of the street still asleep while he digs. I forget
what it’s like to be turned earth out, to be someone’s
dust. Sometimes metaphors mean nothing.
Sometimes I fear words that rhyme with
dove. Sometimes, I measure the miles it takes to dig
deep enough to touch me.

Diannely Antigua is a Dominican American poet and educator, born and raised in Massachusetts. She is the author of the collections Ugly Music (YesYes Books, 2019), which was the winner of a 2020 Whiting Award, and Good Monster (Copper Canyon Press, 2024). She received her MFA at NYU and has received fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, CantoMundo, and Community of Writers. From 2022-2024, she was the 13th Poet Laureate of Portsmouth, NH, the youngest and first person of color to receive the title. She currently teaches at University of New Hampshire as the Nossrat Yassini Poet in Residence.