Sincerity

A dog laps water
from a dented
metal bowl in summer.

The girl nearby waits
to tell me that my 
skirt is riding up.

I want to thank 
so many people for
their blank honesty,

an art which we’ve 
almost lost. Blank,
but not brutal. There 

was no meanness 
in her small voice,
just facts. Sometimes

that helps. I’d like
to know who decided
that cloaked words

are better. Hiding
from the truth just means
waiting longer to hear it.

But there are no excuses
for what I’ve done here—
even now, I’m fibbing.

---

Louisa Schnaithmann’s work has appeared in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, E-Verse Radio, and Wine Cellar Press, among others, and is forthcoming in Gargoyle. She is the consulting editor for ONE ART: a journal of poetry. Her chapbook Plague Love is forthcoming from Moonstone Arts. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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