A contoured villanelle using “Teacher” by Elizabeth Alexander
When you don’t answer, I swear then count to ten,
remind myself I’m not a teen, no driving by to...
Dustin Brookshire’s (he/him) fourth & latest chapbook is Repeat As Needed (Harbor Editions, 2025). He is a co-editor of Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology (Madville Publishing, 2023) and editor of When I Was Straight: A Tribute to Maureen Seaton (Harbor Editions, 2024). More at dustinbrookshire.com.
Beth Gylys is the Principal Investigator of Beyond Bars, a Mellon Foundation sponsored journal for and by incarcerated writers and artists, and an award-winning poet and Distinguished Professor at Georgia State University. Recent publications include After My Father, a chapbook of odes (Dancing Girl Press, 2024) and Body Braille (Iris Books, 2021). linktr.ee/bethgylys.