Reimagining of the Self
Hollie Dugas
Poetry
12 February 2025
I want to embody the sea urchin,
uncannily, stroll elegantly across
sand on strange eyes – globular,
with no bones for breaking.
The savor of my body
unbeknownst to me.
Though lovers from all over
would twitterpate over my sweet
brinish flavor. 360 degrees
of seeing and I would never
know heart. I’d react to movement.
But movement only.
Besides, a mind never knows
what it wants. I’d regulate algae
instead – a job with no knowing.
There will be nothing metaphysical
flowing in and out of me. I’d be,
peculiar, contained of simpleness;
aphrodisia. And I would not fear
the nature of my own intensity,
shimmering like Aristotle’s lantern.
Non-sentient, now, I abandon
brain; keep five teeth and poison.
This is the moment I’ve been
waiting for: to exist in my freaky
little body, insular, sifting through
oblivion, innate with indifference.
Hollie Dugas lives in New Mexico. Her work has been included in Barrow Street, Reed Magazine, Qu, Redivider, Porter House Review, Salamander, Poet Lore, Mud Season Review, The Louisville Review, The Penn Review, Breakwater Review, RHINO, Sixth Finch, Gordon Square Review, Phoebe, Broad River Review, and Louisiana Literature. Additionally, “A Woman’s Confession #5,162” was selected as the winner of Western Humanities Review Mountain West Writers’ Contest (2017). Hollie has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for inclusion in Best New Poets. Most recently, her poem was selected as winner of the 22nd Annual Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize at CALYX, in addition to, the 2022 Heartwood Poetry Prize. She was also a finalist in the Atlanta Review’s 2022 International Poetry Contest.