Tyler French: We Were Never Able to Afford

Photo: Joanna C. Valente

FIVE OF COINS

I paint my nails each a different color PENNY

TALK / HAY THERE / SWEATER WEATHER /

TONED DOWN / GARDEN VARIETY approx.

the paint scheme for the walls of the house

TF + MC = a poet + a dancer = we

will never be able to afford

we were never able to afford

a house IN THIS ECONOMY

without X years working jobs

our parents warned us about

even if they never did, explicitly

we joke we’re going about this all

wrong AT LEAST 1 of us should be $$$

enough to patronage the art of the other

or 1+ of us should find a $$$ husband

& the 2 of us should spend (or want, if

that might be the inverse of this) less

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Tyler French (he/him/his) is a writer and public humanist living in Washington, D.C. His first full-length book of poetry, He Told Me was published by Capturing Fire Press May 2019. He has writing in Assaracus, Beech Street Review, Bending Genres Journal, Stoked Words, an anthology of queer poetry, and The Quarry, Split This Rock’s Social Justice Poetry Database. He is a co-creator and baker for Queer Cookies, a series and bake sale supporting queer-identified poets. See more of Tyler’s work at tylerhfrench.com