By Erin Carlyle
I picked out her moon pale face,
walked her home. I wanted to kiss her out
of thin air, loved her jeans with rips
at the knees: soft skin peeked.
What remained of her in my pocket
for later—a phone number on a piece
of homework. She never called back,
but now when I sleep she says: I remember
you were the last thing, and I can’t even break
the shell of a king crab without hearing
her fingernail crack on concrete,
the white meat inside—her clenched teeth.
I hear her say: I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.
My father will make her go away.
Erin Carlyle’s work has been featured in literary magazines such as Up the Staircase Quarterly and Driftwood Press, and forthcoming in Prairie Schooner. Her chapbook, You Spit Hills and My Body, is published with Dancing Girl Press. She holds a MA in Literary and Textual Studies from Bowling Green State University and a graduate certificate in Gender and Women’s Studies from Western Kentucky University. Currently she is the Assistant Poetry Editor of Mid-American Review and holds a MFA from Bowling Green State University.
The Crossing 