Alice Pettway

Alice Pettway is the author of three books of poetry: The Time of Hunger (Salmon
Poetry, 2017), Moth (2019) and Station Lights (forthcoming 2021). Her poetry, nonfiction and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in The Bitter Oleander, The Colorado Review, The Miami Herald, The Progressive, Teaching Tolerance, The Threepenny Review, WomenArts Quarterly and many others. Currently, Pettway lives and writes in Shanghai, China.


A Stranger City

I lose my self
in the street when horns
like church bells, mechanical
syllables crush the city around me.

A lightning storm flickers,
tickling cloudline unshocking.
I’m not grounded, and they,
they know it—the umbrellas
carrying people, the shopping bags,
the dogs walking rich ladies’boys,
the fare without a cab driver.

Even the nun’s frown
as it passes me,
ascending from sanctuary
to cafe, says I know
you, and you
are not of this world.







© 2019 Alice Pettway
Alice Pettway was a Featured Poet at the month 2019 Second Sunday Poetry Series