Michelle Meyer

CONTACT:
Email meeshwmeyer@gmail.com    
Website https://www.michellemeyerwrites.com/
Instagram @meeshmeyerwrites      

BIO:
Michelle Meyer is the author of The Trouble with Being a Childless Only Child (February 2024 Cornerstone Press) and The Book of She (July 2021), 52 persona poems devoted to and illustrated by women. Recent work appears in Under Her Eye: A Blackspot Books Anthology, Nebulous, Remington Review, Spank the Carp, Tiny Spoon, Welter, and many others. In addition, Michelle is a worldwide house and pet sitter who especially loves cats.

PUBLICATIONS:
The Trouble with Being a Childless Only Child (Cornerstone Press, 2/2024)
The Book of She (Blurb Books, 2021)
10 Pieces of Truth (chapbook)

Poetry

At the Public Library

It must have been a terrible shock when
I ran into him at the public library and he said
Hello—Nice day—How’s your mother?

A terrible shock when I, skinny with grief,
whispered to him that
she was dead.

Years ago, he bought a car from her

That day,
at the public library, his face turned pink
and he took a step back.

He wasn’t afraid of me. He was afraid
of the way his tongue was twisting, thickening,
choking his words.

I’m sorry, I said. I said
the words for him. I said the words
for her.

Piece of Meat

Is there meat?
your third husband would say.

Sloppy Joes? Kielbasa and kraut? Chicken
and dumplings? Tacos?

There better be meat.

Sometimes there wasn’t meat. Sometimes
there was soup

because there wasn’t enough money
for meat.

Where’s the meat?
your third husband would say, not asking, but

demanding, accusing, faulting.

Wasn’t it he? Who owed child support?
Alimony? 

Wasn’t it you? Paying the bills? 
Wasn’t it you? 

Paying?