Remember me knee-deep.
Remember me kelp-bedecked.
Remember me wet,
legs pretzeled, sex-melted
yet spleen-tempered. Best egg,
esteem the verve, never
defer me. Help defend
the creed we serve: nerve meter.
Be depressed less, seer. See me
flensed. Whether we end
tethered, ever-nested
grebes, select rejects, screwed
plebs, peer nerds, yes we
bested New Jersey, we rejected
TEDx deference, we stress-
resembled bees when they went
berserk, we respected ferns.

—

Rennie (Renata) Ament‘s work has appeared in The Literary Review, Poetry Northwest, DIAGRAM, Sixth Finch, Colorado Review, West Branch, and other journals. Her unpublished first collection of poetry was a finalist for the Burnside Review Press Book Contest and a semifinalist for Fonograf Edition’s Open Genre Book Prize (2020). She has been the runner-up for the Erskine J. Poetry Prize from Smartish Pace (2019), winner of the Yellowwood Prize in Poetry from Yalobusha Review (2018), and finalist for the Anzaldúa Poetry Prize from Newfound (2018). A nominee for both the Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets, she has received support from the Millay Colony, the Saltonstall Foundation, the New York State Summer Writers Institute, the Center for Book Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center. She lives in Maine.