with a variation on a line from “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
my life ! o ! all around me ! what pink hysteria ! fresh manicures ! claw down faces ! screeching static ! tv screens in shop windows ! disheveled bar patrons ! cry out ! an epidemic ! atomic crushes from mars ! noxious fuchsia gases ! airborne ! toxic ! no girl is safe ! from sighing into hands ! eyes turned cartoon hearts ! relentless awooga ! girls wrapped round ring fingers ! and o ! the shimmying ! the bloody bitten lips ! the delusions ! of splendor ! o i’m so over ! the moon ! telling me what to do ! her marionette strings ! tied to my wrists ! i’m so over the fox-trot ! i perform in her wake ! in dreams ! like a mating call ! the soft animal of my body ! fucks what it fucks ! and sometimes that means lying ! on the highway ! in my bluest ballgown ! as i recall the sweet ! singing ! refrain ! of your voice ! inventing my name ! charming ! from across ! the room ! memory of your tongue ! in my mouth ! like a dagger ! thrown across state lines ! precisely aimed ! at my shirt hem ! pins me to a moment ! in time ! for now ! o ! how hard it is ! to hold that echo ! in my hands ! how hard ! to remind my brain ! to turn your face ! right side up !
SHELBI CHURCH is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama, where she is an assistant poetry, fiction, and nonfiction editor for Black Warrior Review. Her fiction and Pushcart Prize-nominated poetry can be found in Poetry Online, Hobart, Ghost City Review, Barren Magazine, Overheard, and elsewhere. This summer she will attend the Tin House Workshop in poetry led by Franny Choi. Hailing from Haslet, Texas, and more recently Boston, Massachusetts, she now lives and writes in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
The art that appears alongside this piece is “Claire’s Heart, Mama, Meditation” by JONATHAN KENT ADAMS.