Side A List Poem by Tracy Royce: “Things That Remain Suspended (Handsfree) When Wedged Beneath My Breast”

Things That Remain Suspended (Handsfree) When Wedged Beneath My Breast

  1. my electric toothbrush, toothpaste tube, and floss
  2. my hair dryer, cord coiled at my feet
  3. three organic romaine hearts, nestled in their package
  4. one 375 mL can of wine, the kind you buy so you can pretend you’re not going to open a second can and drink an entire bottle’s worth
  5. actually, one entire 750 mL bottle of wine, unopened
  6. my laptop, running hot
  7. my husband’s fully charged power drill
  8. one 16-ounce package of pre-sliced mozzarella, one 14.5-ounce can of crushed tomatoes, and one 2-ounce tin of anchovies in olive oil
  9. a corkscrew and a stainless-steel pizza wheel
  10. an unabridged edition of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick

Mini-interview with Tracy Royce

HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)?

TR: I took a class on innovative poetic forms with Charles Jensen, and it blew my mind. We read and wrote centos, erasures, hermit crabs, poems using constraints inspired by the OuLiPo movement. I had the good fortune to study with this fantastic poet at a point in time when I was ready to take chances with my writing. Now I feel freer and more willing to experiment. Before studying with Charlie, I don’t think I could have written this piece or a lot of the pieces I’ve published recently.

HFR: What are you reading?

TR: I recently finished Tananarive Due’s The Wishing Pool and Other Stories (I love her so much) and I just started Willy Vlautin’s Lean on Pete, which has me captivated. As far as poetry goes, I’m nibbling on Harryette Mullen’s Sleeping with the Dictionary and The Oblivion Ha-Ha by James Tate. I borrowed both from my local library. When I returned home and opened Tate’s collection, the first thing I read was the old punchcard: “PLEASE KEEP THIS CARD IN BOOK POCKET.” I swooned.

HFR: Can you tell us what prompted “Things That Remain Suspended (Handsfree) When Wedged Beneath My Breast”?

TR: I’m crazy for list poems and short prose pieces formatted as lists. So much so that my first instinct is to reply to this question in list form, but in this case I’m going to resist the list. What I can tell you is this: I have big boobs, and these things have what my husband and I call “gription.” I started testing less hefty household items, and things kind of escalated from there.

HFR: What’s next? What are you working on?

TR: This is the time of year when I tend to think about my parents a lot because they both passed away in the spring. I owe my mother my love of literature and my father my love of nature. These themes are emerging in some of the new poems and micros I’m writing.

I’m also revising a manuscript, let’s call it, Please Don’t Jinx Me by Talking about Me Just Yet.

HFR: Take the floor. Be political. Be fanatical. Be anything. What do you want to share?

TR: Read a banned book. Support authors whose work has been challenged. Let’s defend our freedom to read.

Tracy Royce is a writer and poet with words appearing in 100 Word Story, Bending Genres, The Mackinaw, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Villain Era, and elsewhere. Her work was selected for Best Microfiction 2026 and has been nominated for Best Small Fictions, a Touchstone Award, and a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Southern California, where she enjoys hiking. You can find her on Bluesky. 

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