Chloe Cook

What I Should Not Admit


I leave like an avocado pit—
that is, by removal. By which hand, I’m not sure. 

There’s the old money kind of rich, like east coast 
boating shoes and summer brunches. 
Desire is something we’ve all lived through. 

I could catch it, though I suspect it fickle.
August is poignant the way Jane Austen is poignant. 
All these obligations are major or minor—

what else is like that? I am supposed to love my sister 
but I do not. Family is first and foremost a lesson.

Chloe Cook is an undergraduate student attending Northern Kentucky University. She currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Loch Norse Magazine, and her writing is featured or forthcoming in Stoneboat Literary Journal, Sledgehammer Lit, Sutterville Review, deathcap, and elsewhere. Her first chapbook, entitled Surge, is forthcoming from dancing girl press this spring.