Olivia Dodge
Bio
Chicago
ig: l1vyzzzz & lntlmate
Stories (109)
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Mother’s Sun
10/30/25 I think of Claire Keegan when the leaves turn yellow. I think she would want it that way. I think of you when the wind hurts my ears. I think of you when the sun hits my face and when the homeless man at the bus stop blesses me for looking in his direction. He shows me his teeth and tells me God bless you, God bless you, the sun is on us, God bless you. He shows me his cross made up of eight seashells, tells me it’s his mother, traces horizontally, Sea to Sea. He tells me we’re all going through something and it will all be okay, tells me his mother died two years ago at ninety-eight, God bless you, God bless you. I bless him in return, with God, with the last dollar I have, with the tears that run down my neck. He says he’s not doing well, this will come back to me ten times, thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope he finds the sea and it blesses him forever. I hope the sun and the yellow leaves find him wherever he goes. I hope you think of me when the trees turn golden brown and start to fall like lost love letters. I hope you think of me forever. I would want it that way.
By Olivia Dodge4 months ago in Poets
September
9/2/25 9:55pm I’m cross-legged on the sidewalk and there’s a cloud that looks like my elementary school, they upgraded the busses on the north side so it matches your funeral-inspired eggplant drapes and I can’t tell anyone about it because it doesn’t make sense to someone with living relatives, my legs are getting stiff on the concrete and elementary cloud turned into something like a salsa rendition with goats as butlers, the drapes look a lot worse than you thought they would but it was that or the electric bill so we’re eating dinner in the dark until you find the courage to pack it up and bring it to Whole Foods, we’re doing everything in the dark until someone digs their hands into the couch and finds the lyrics to that tune we wrote last year, you said it had notes of autumn’s song and I laughed at you then but now it makes sense because my family is getting smaller and the leaves don’t sound as crunchy anymore, my legs don’t feel as strong as anymore, my ceiling-fan lights don’t seem as necessary as before, and my windows don’t do anything but mock the solitude in our house that does nothing but pay homage to every grave next door.
By Olivia Dodge6 months ago in Poets
The Shortest Poem Is A Name. Top Story - August 2025.
8/5/25 THE SHORTEST POEM IS A NAME After Anne Michaels The shortest poem is a name. It is fewer letters than breaths, less thought, more familiarity. It is yours to have and mine to harbor, yours to sustain, mine to fatten with vows that hit your larynx like a medicinal drip. The shortest poem is a hum of every sound that has ever been, and it sounds like nothing at all. It is the quickest fleet of fleeting feelings, the smallest feeling of feat that eats at the things you eat— anything to obscure the sunset view through the windshield— anything to keep the light out. The shortest poem writes itself in agony, reaching around limbs and rooms of consciousness to cross a letter that makes no difference to the thing itself. It plugs its ears when I set the dinner table, holds its breath when I open the blinds, closes its eyes when I say its name. I cannot hold the hand of a thing too small to hear, but I can paint the walls with great reflections of life— too big to feed and too slow to feel for more than the fleeting fleet it takes to reach between a rib and write The End.
By Olivia Dodge7 months ago in Poets
June
6/28/25 In June there were wasps at every corner. There were men and women and children with blown out feathers like peacocks or the figure in that field now floating in every direction at the sound of fire. Fear of being stung is just as bad as popcorn lung or tachycardia to some people. Same levels of adrenaline and whatnot. It’s been beautiful for a year but the news sites keep writing the same flood over and over again and we’re starting to worry about the pipes. You’re starting to give in to the thing that I needed your strength to stop. Now we’re using plastic cups instead of glassware because the kids have nowhere else to go so they gather at every turn and they don’t get paid to be here so it’s no use saying excuse me. They don’t even pull the legs of their pants up so it’s leaving tracks all over the floor. In June it’s cold and then it’s hot and the rain should stop sooner or later. The families in soft sand don’t think about peeling off denim skirts in the bathrooms because they have a roast that’s ready at home and the kids are starting to get hungry. Don’t worry— he took the feathers off. He’ll make sure your bowl is bone-free and he called his friend to update the plumbing and, even so, nothing could take your mind away from the plate in front of you. Wasps don’t build their nests in places they aim to destroy and June doesn’t hold off disaster for anyone. Pack an umbrella and drench your skin in sticky glow. Just because it’s their only choice doesn’t mean they aren’t grateful.
By Olivia Dodge7 months ago in Poets
the pride bus
Beauty is around me today because a woman on the bus says so. She says sorry for interrupting and it’s funny how that’s a conversation just the same. I tell her where I work and to ask for me if she comes by and I know her bus stop so it’s okay to share. When she gets off she complains everyone else is too loud (they are) and she’s a stranger so I forgive her. Customers tell me I complement myself and I gladly take credit for it. I say it’s day three without a wash and they differ because they’ll never see me again. It still feels like purpose swims through time because we all like beautiful things. Even when it’s trapped outside our skin. Even when it takes a stranger and the right lighting and it’s okay for me to say because I’ve never been good with performances. Just because I sound different doesn’t mean I am and just because the bus is loud doesn’t mean I can’t make a friend.
By Olivia Dodge9 months ago in Poets
