Tyler Friend is an apricot/human hybrid grown in Tennessee, and they received their MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. They are the founding editor of the online poetry magazine Francis House and the author of the chapbook Ampersonate (Choose the Sword Press). Their poems have appeared in Tin House, Hobart, Hunger Mountain, and Mud Season Review where they received Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations.





Tyler Friend

A Woman Leaves Vermont [comma] the World

And we feel it. We feel it
in Tennessee, Alabama, Alaska. We feel it

in Bellingham and Way-South Texas. We feel it
in Iowa and Albuquerque, maybe most of all. I hardly knew her,

but I know what she did for us, that she cut limes for my Corona, cooked
me tacos, let me play her videogames. Was radical, wanted

to perform abortions on every street corner. Bring your own hanger, five
dollars. Walked with me

in the middle of the street, with boxes of wine, with her wife
and Magaly, and never once let anyone see her scared.

I’m scared. The first time I met my coworker at the library
she told me that her friend is trans

and in the same breath that he tried to commit suicide
last month. I’m not sure why she tells me

these things, but I’m glad she feels like she can. Sometimes
being queer in the south seems so lonely, so

quiet. Sometimes it feels like we’re glass floats, and sometimes
it feels like we’re mastheads, and sometimes we’re the waves.




Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.