Waverly Vernon
Waverly Vernon (they/them) is a writer and interdisciplinary artist from Florida currently studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Their work explores politics, religious deprogramming, and trauma, transforming personal experience into connection and dialogue. Their poetry also appears in Moonstone Arts Center, WIA Magazine, Wildscape Literary Journal, Assignment Literary Magazine, Creation Magazine, and Arcana Poetry Press.
Easy read of the poem in the images above:
GE 21.9-cu ft Top-Freezer Refrigerator ( White )
a couple of eggs
in the door tray.
mayo film-rimmed
half a month old
or more.
plastic bottle
off-brand “juice”
red #40
high fructose corn syrup
(the label peels like sunburn)
bag of shredded cheese
more preservatives
than milk.
tomato,
wrinkled,
like something once beloved.
deli meat,
slimy,
sealed in doubt.
nitrate-kissed.
the color of surrender.
(what is fresh and what is fatal blur)
what feeds us
drags its tail behind
like a slow leak
in the lung.
the children know
not to ask
why
the apples are soft
why
the milk is thin.
drink it cold
keep it quiet.
cheap
is coated
in dye
and denial.
affordable
is bitter
and branded.
it will cost
your cells,
your blood sugar,
your mother’s liver.
(some assembly (of your body) required)
half-dead vegetables.
frozen chicken patty apocalypse.
cheese that cannot rot.
you want to know
how we live?
open the fridge.
listen to it hum
like a low warning.
