your oldest niece asks for career advice,
hair down her back glossy as the close
-lying coat of a racehorse in high summer.
You wouldn’t call the last ten years a career

so much as a lukewarm bath of vitriolic acid.
At twenty-three you followed your boyfriend’s
jawline to the same city as half your high school,
bought a capsule wardrobe in neutral tones

of gabardine and cashmere, and gritted
your teeth through three winters of electrical
fires on your daily commutes. Amidst the blur
of early-stage funding and microservice

architecture, you were right a lot. Played
a lot of fantasy football with ivy-league
business majors, learned to wield a turn
of phrase sharp enough to disarm high-fiving

sexism in a drop-ceilinged boardroom.
In Pittsburgh, four days after Trump
was elected for the second time, you drank
citywides at Brillobox with your tech lead,

disassociating. Still, it took another year
and a depressive episode so sinister
your handwriting changed for you to crawl
back to poetry. Now, over the second sweating

gin and tonic losing to the 300 mg of Wellbutrin
pounding dull against your temples you tell her
to leave. It will seem impossible but it will never
get easier and you are talking to yourself.