on estrangement

My mother used to scrapbook. She had a bucket list and labeled every bucket we kicked over or filled with tadpoles. She wrote captions just like this. We went to the mushroom rock today. Gracie threw a message in a bottle in the lake. Tell me if you find me, it says, with my email address. Gracie wore my sweatshirt and looked for rocks that could be dragon eggs. It’s funny how even when we could say mostly anything, we just wanted to know if someone were there.

grace (ge) gilbert is a hybrid writer based in Pittsburgh. they received their MFA in poetry from the University of Pittsburgh in 2022, where they now serve as a Visiting Lecturer. they are the author of 3 chapbooks: the closeted diaries: essays (Porkbelly Press 2022), NOTIFICATIONS IN THE DARK (Antenna Books 2023), and today is an unholy suite (forthcoming; Barrelhouse 2023). their work can be found in 2023’s Best of the Net Anthology, the Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, the Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. They teach hybrid collage and poetics courses at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, and they are a 2023 Visiting Teaching Artist at the Poetry Foundation. they are passionate about making the hybrid arts accessible to all. find course offerings and more at gracegegilbert.com.