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Issue 2 Poetry

To Groups Past

I submitted these poems as part of the final collection for my first poetry workshop class last quarter. Riley O. reviewed my work and their feedback was so generous and kind on an area of writing I was quite unfamiliar with. Initially, I was nervous to first share these poems but Riley made the process simple by offering genuine, reader-based marginal comments on each draft. As a result, some of my poems took new directions even I wasn’t expecting.

I know your most terrific titles if not your last names, 
four tiles of linoleum between you and “Hi [inserted self here],”
comes no reply at this meeting of five defined by excerpt of unbroken 
air conditioned for answering. You know me only by my almost ends and 
what is left unsaid in the empty chair next week—if not this one I enter that 
room certain I am not moved by its entrance. Still, you seeped through four walls 
and the room split around its opening like jewelweed seeds, touched as should be
you told me as I burst under your weighted stone eyes, only four tiles between your 
wetness and mine. Horrified when you finally spoke my name, I understand why we 
must meet and then flee, allotting ourselves to wither separately, a re-group for the 
lonely categorized as deadly. Repeated every six weeks, I love and leave you as therapy.


Elly Boes is a peer tutor and fellow at DePaul’s writing center as well as a student journalist working as Senior Associate Editor for 14 East magazine. In their free time, Boes enjoys writing poetry, swimming in Lake Michigan and playing with their two cats, Stevie and Jodie.