Emily Crocker complicates home and family in her debut poetry collection, Girls and Buoyant. With sensitivity and wry observation, Crocker explores old suburbs and new losses at the intersection of late capitalism and queer love.


Pinky-promise me you won't die tonight.
You shook my little finger back.
I put the car keys on the bedside anyway
and held your cells, rocking themselves apart,
together until the pharmacy reopened.