By Sarah Felder
Eyes back, lean back, I haven’t felt
The bare boned winter yet,
Your face in circles trailing skin-like
Apparitions, parenthetical laugh lines,
Twined lips, puckered and alive with
Hiccupped laughing;
The Italian leather of your BMW sticks
To my thighs, I dream of her there,
The yellowing walls of the Ramada,
Where we smoked cigarettes all night
Between scratchy throws and music
Humming against the floors.
Back on the Island I remember you more:
The broken stairs to Mconoky beach,
Lambert’s cove road winds to me, extends
It’s tar limbs to visit for a day, and since leaving
That whistle of a place I no longer
Feel the salt under my fingernails.
We take tattoo guns and permanently mark this on ourselves:
This feeling of springtime at eighteen years old,
Slap youth on the back because you were
Never
A child
Just a reflection of the person that
Would take off to East Hollywood
Forever
And fall asleep with the other junkies and drag queens.
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About the Author
My name is Sarah Felder; I am from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. I am finishing up my degree here at APU this spring. I am inspired by nature, nostalgia, and the passing of time. I love contemporary poetry, but read all genres from all times and places. Some of my favorite poets include, Elizabeth Bishop, Ezra Pound, Stephen Dobyns, and Sharon Olds.
One Comment
Kellyn M.
While reading this piece I was struck with a strange sense of Alaskan winters and old Hollywood. I loved your word choice in “parenthetical laugh line” and “twined lips.” I thought that these were interesting and fresh ways to describe facial features that both depicted specific imagery and character. Your attention to all the senses (sight, touch, smell) create a very strong experience for the reader. I felt like I was inside of this piece of writing. Your ending left me with complex and painful feelings for the character, both knowing what he/she has gone through in my own experience and yearning to know more about the motives behind both characters.