Scout Faller

INHERENT PROPERTIES

candles, inside, are full of bathwater

being inside there are various moods and papers

inside each pantry are ant traps inside traps a seduction

inside seduction there is a compulsion

inside of compulsion, history and some reasons

inside reasons, bits of kindling

inside kindling the promise of char in your hair

inside each promise, a gesture to alternatives

inside alternatives consumptive habits

inside the mall, a store with your skirt

inside the skirt a prettier person with a poet’s face

inside the jacquard print two owl eyes

inside each eye the meanest moon we have in writing

the moon can’t even be seen, she’s so mean.

what hangs in her place is a child’s

drawing thumbtacked to the sky. inside each child their

blinkered light with its three settings inside each child, all the

holidays that end in cake inside each cake four

hands that shape the butter

into its rectangular prism

CRY ME A RIVER

we don’t smoke anymore do we?

gone the california way and chased

ourselves around with leafy greens

indulging in the agreed-

upon things blue dawn rising

stuck stars in concrete

basil cumin french jeans

lights swim across your face

in defiance of the fog,

or the waves

the miserably recurring line items

rent days work days days long days

i guess i should speak for myself

i try on a feeling

it makes me want to scrape

the hair out of my rug and

shove my hands down the drain

i don’t have

time for you

to break me

down again,

or emerge from the sea

boring

wetsuit aphrodite

HOW MY NAME GOES DOWN IN 2018

yeah no my parents love to kill a

mockingbird, my father with mild dyslexia

and my mother who reads murder mysteries

with recipes at the end, absolutely i saw the aaron

sorkin play on broadway three thousand

miles from where you’re asking me, a cashier

making minimum wage yes the performance

of the forty-four year old woman playing an eight

year old deserved a tony. i agree! an important book

reminding white ppl of the qualities we

like best in ourselves my dad is the furthest

thing from atticus, thanks for asking—he’s never stood up for

anything but his right to bring a knife on a plane—

without a question in his mind. your receipt?

HOW I ANSWER THE PHONE BANK CALL

my horse is a good day when

our children get on all fours and run home

for the dinner-bell ringing it i’m a senator’s

wife and i shoot out the dawn they sewed me

into this dress for the election what

happens is you slip your gloved hands

inside pressed against your chest like

some leatherette marsupial pouch and

they disappear, stylishly and you become

a flat image that is pulled up next to another

flatter image with a vertical line dividing

them and the text asks who wore it better

it is whoever held themselves in a way

that suggests their arms are really gone

from the front or the side a cutout

of shoulder slicing through—

this is very flattering, but only if you are

married to a senator as i am and so truly

unconcerned with electoral politics except

that wherever i am not holding his hand

there they are but not pressing buttons

at the tuesday night at the phone bank just

standing dressy handless my four children

who make up one horse arrive on time are not

in the voting line for we’ve already won

Scout (they/them) has poetry in cc zine and cul-de-sac of blood, and poems forthcoming in rejection letters and bullshit lit. They live in the outer sunset neighborhood of San Francisco with their partner and their cat. They hope you think of them, often. You can find them on instagram at @_theminem__.