Double Standard

artwork

Cristina Sandoval is a photographer by day and reader by night. When she is not doing either, she is probably playing fetch with her dog or binge watching a series in her bed. She is currently in her second year of graduate school at MSU Texas, majoring in English with the hopes of working for a publishing firm in the future. You can find her other photography work on her Instagram @cas1_photo and direct message her for bookings and questions.

On Giving Notice

by Devon Balwit

After I announce I’ve quit, unwilling to capacitate 
a hostile foreign power, a friend asks what

I’ll do next, sounding, for all the world
like my dead grandmother. “Next” comes the bold

experiment called “survival,” a hodge-podge
of under-the-table and work-in-kind. To begrudge

the still-salaried seems wrong, given decades
of four-hour days, afternoons filled

with drawing and versifying. What does a woman
like me need? A room, a desk, some beans.

Of course, what-ifs snarl at the door —
ready to wreak havoc between 2 and 4.

Aristotle peers at me from marbled brows.
Feckless fool, he snickers. You’re in for it now.

the poet
Author's Bio

When not making art, Devon Balwit edits forAsimov PressandAsterisk Magazine.