Dear Policyholder: We Have Denied Your Claim
by Joel Allegretti
In a New York
Catholic church’s
men’s shelter,
the guest
in the fourth bed
from the linen closet
holds a Ph.D.
in molecular biology
from Princeton.
Joel Allegretti is the author of, most recently, Let’s All Be Happy Today (The Opiate Books, 2025), a collection of short stories. In addition, he has published six books and chapbooks of poetry and Our Dolphin (Thrice Publishing, 2016), a novella. He is the editor of Rabbit Ears: TV Poems (NYQ Books, 2015). The Boston Globe called Rabbit Ears “cleverly edited” and “a smart exploration of the many, many meanings of TV.”
