R.B. Simon

CONTACT:
Address: 4722 Maher Ave., Madison 53716
Email: poet.r.b.simon@gmail.com
Website: www.rb-simon.com

BIO:
R.B. Simon (she/her) is a queer, black, fat, disabled writer and Managing Editor at Harbor Editions. Her  work has found homes in The Coop, Strange Horizons, Literary Mama, CALYX, Obsidian, FERAL, SWIMM, and Ink & Marrow, among others. She has been a finalist for numerous poetry and book prizes and is the winner of the 2023 Zoyer Zyndel Poetry Prize. Her first full-length collection, Not Just the Fire, was released March 2023 from Cornerstone Press, and the upcoming Bird, Bone, Blood is due out from Milk & Cake Press in 2025. She is currently living in Madison, WI with her spouse and two daughters.

PUBLICATIONS:
Bird, Bone, Blood, Forthcoming from Milk & Cake Press
Not Just the Fire,  Cornerstone Books.
The Good Truth, Finishing Line Press

Poetry

(Re)Incarnation

Like all birds, mythical or not,
           there is an egg.

Inside, darkness.  An ember,
                as the fiery sliver
            lies within its yolk of ash.

Days uncounted, for days are of no
consequence, curled as they are
        in endless coils.

It is no easy thing, birthing, when all
you remember is the sweltering dark;

Yet driven by the body’s demand for burning, white-hot
beak demanding exit, a sudden influx of oxygen
            as flaming wings spread wide, at once aloft.

In the end, what makes you a phoenix is not
just the fire,
            but the flight.

Marriage Advice

Last night after a fight with my lover
I sat on my front porch under an umbrella,
vicious thunderstorm pounding
down around me, tugging
the umbrella slantways
and shaking, as I smoked my cigarette
angrily, watching the park across the
street light up with electric daylight.
It felt like Mother Nature laughing, as the
storm grew more furious and insistent,
clucking her thunder-tongue in a mighty show,
sending her rain slivering sideways
beneath my umbrella like finger pokes:

       :Girl, you know nothing of storms,
       go put your petty squall to bed:

Surrendering my anger to the gale,
returning inside to lover quiet,
stretched out on the bed, I strip
off my clothes sodden with Her teaching,
lay down, offering my tongued apologies,
lover rubbing raindrops into my skin
like holy oils, and outside, the rain slowed,
and the moon broke through.