Post #1

Photo by William Eggleston


Backseat Driver
Kimberly Wang

All polyester strains and rough cotton,

safety first, that sound click,

the pressure on my chest from leaning

too far forward, as always

my outstretched hand,

this is the closest we are to contact

the seat between us empty

and my nails along the indentations 'middle'

- what a structure of white keratin

a lattice a coil a B-pleated sheet

the geometry of your folded legs is with me still

reflected now in the structure of failed trusses.

Sometimes I wake writhing in blankets

and in the shower, I find bruises.

It is easier to talk in the dark,

the contoured shadow of our five-seater Toyota

thrown each time we pass a street lamp.

You can't see the light go out in somebody's eyes.

I took my words back, but even then

you had to know

that some nights hold darkness like a cool well,

a cold hand a wet towel on the forehead

on burning eyes from a fever spread.

Other nights breed dreams of deception

and I wake fearing that I have always

been the villain.

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Sitting by the Window, Florida Summer
Sarah Van Name

Mr. Peters, widowed, getting on in age,
keeps kids’ bicycles in his house across the street.
Fixed-gear, red-blue, spokes broken.
They fly up and down the road in the summer morning.

But the rainy season has settled in strong
and mid-afternoon brings the sweet smell of acid and ozone,
and ocean-colored light.
They flutter in like dragonflies,
park their bikes by the Buick,
and scatter – pool balls after the strike –
jackets pulled over their heads,
back to houses without garages.

I see the bikes, silver and leaning,
in the dark after a late-coming rain.

That I could keep you like this in warm yellow light.
That I could hold you, like crickets hold nightsongs,
after every storm.