WHAT A PRIVILEGE IT IS TO BE SO INSIGNIFICANT (part one)
by Emma Bolden
Last night I woke a fever, 2 a.m., I worried how
to tell you what I can and can’t consume.
My stomach turns me. If I write for forty days
and forty nights, will I get to the bottom of me,
a lake drained of its drink, a fish white-lipped
there, gasping? Outside of my window and even
at nighttide the azaleas slouch, indecent, fawning off
their fuchsia threads against a broad swath of gray.
In the dark I am invisible like a loom of stripped wires
sparking behind a wall. I have nothing more to say
to you because I have no you to say a thing to. A warped
reel of birdsong whirls up my throat. By this age I wanted
to know the body as an object exquisite, jewel-cut
and gold-set, a beautiful treasure beneath smooth hair.
Now I am a table saw trying to be elegant, trying to know
the world by dividing it, piece by piece. At night I lay down
in the long bed and shiver up to the wild profusion
of my own hair. Into the dark I set loose a flock
of syllables. I watch every word’s winging, bright-
beaked, luminous. I should’ve clipped them gone.
i'm so excited to have a poem in the latest issue of Radar Poetry. if you head to the website you can hear me read it, and the issue is a beauty--AND there's a stunning poem by @wordperv.bsky.social there, too!
www.radarpoetry.com/privilege
![[“Earthset” by Artemis II crew as they flew around the moon 4/6/2026, and “Earthrise” from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders 12/24/1968]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rkgmcmrlwobvdajgjmxlvfya/bafkreibxct2n5m3obthl2evamyyyld2clgxg63g7arrkk5arfv24ekyq3a)
![[“Earthset” by Artemis II crew as they flew around the moon 4/6/2026, and “Earthrise” from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders 12/24/1968]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rkgmcmrlwobvdajgjmxlvfya/bafkreidvx7nkye4fsspfzugu2tbswtl6u3i3sy6kcj2umuwwofwhzouk4y)
