The Coercive Institutions
by Andrew Kozma
Your hands behind your back, up to your neck,
and your lover holding this pillow over your face,
the worming sensation, the snot-slick certainty
she won’t let up. Fear keeps you from voicing your fear.
Where are your papers? I have no papers. Where were you
born? How can you prove it? The personal
is political. The political says you are not a person.
All we are is one relationship after another. One child
raises their hand—next thing you know, all children
raise their hands. The coercion is the fear of flashing lights.
You have done nothing wrong. You have done nothing
wrong. You have done nothing wrong. You have done
nothing. Your hands behind your back, up to your neck.
Your love is fear. She won’t let up.
Andrew Kozma's poems have appeared in Redactions, The Baltimore Review, and Best American Poetry 2015. Their book of poems, City of Regret, won the Zone 3 First Book Award, and their second book, Orphanotrophia, was published in 2021 by Cobalt Press.
