ghost exchange

Ann Tweedy

because i can offer you nothing
i aspire to ask nothing of you
is it a bargain we are stuck in
or its absence
the language thick on us

now we are mimes or those live statues
in San Francisco, grey grease paint,
tiny robotic movements--
no--child stars, trapped 
in performance

---

Ann Tweedy's first full-length book, The Body's Alphabet, was published by Headmistress Press in 2016. It earned a Bisexual Book Award in Poetry and was also a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and for a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Ann also has published three chapbooks, the first of which was reissued by Seven Kitchens Press in April 2020. Her latest chapbook, A Registry of Survival, was published by Last Word Press in December 2020. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, Literary Mama, Clackamas Literary Review, and elsewhere, and she has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Awards. A law professor by day, Ann has devoted her career to serving Native Tribes. In 2020, she moved from Washington State to South Dakota to join the faculty at University of South Dakota School of Law. Read more about her at www.anntweedy.com.