Anne Barngrover
The Waiting Girl Sweats Out a Fever
After the rain you return to the house
whose drawers fill with mud and fish
scales. When I talk to women, we walk
through ragged weeds and pinch
wild strawberries from stem. They taste
like air. We boil dumplings, sweaty
as hands. When I talk to men, we drink
whiskey. We drink thundered glass. I want
to throw a bottle against the wall.
I want to punch somebody in the head.
I cannot survive the drought this way─
sucking rocks for water, crushing
pine needles into spice, curling in puddled
shade. Without rain the night is polished
as bone. You are the mosquito stinging
through my poisoned dress. You are cheap
cloth puckered into dimples, and everyone
sees. I sleep wet in the scalp and legs.
I dream that a man dies of thirst in a cave
and his body becomes a cat’s. His eyes
are dark as a horse’s and round as stones.
I press them down, yet they will not close.
Anne Barngrover's first book, Yell Hound Blues, was recently published by Shipwreckt Books, and her chapbook, Candy in Our Brains, co-written with Avni Vyas, is forthcoming with CutBank in the spring. She is currently a PhD student at University of Missouri.
Return to May 2014 Edition
After the rain you return to the house
whose drawers fill with mud and fish
scales. When I talk to women, we walk
through ragged weeds and pinch
wild strawberries from stem. They taste
like air. We boil dumplings, sweaty
as hands. When I talk to men, we drink
whiskey. We drink thundered glass. I want
to throw a bottle against the wall.
I want to punch somebody in the head.
I cannot survive the drought this way─
sucking rocks for water, crushing
pine needles into spice, curling in puddled
shade. Without rain the night is polished
as bone. You are the mosquito stinging
through my poisoned dress. You are cheap
cloth puckered into dimples, and everyone
sees. I sleep wet in the scalp and legs.
I dream that a man dies of thirst in a cave
and his body becomes a cat’s. His eyes
are dark as a horse’s and round as stones.
I press them down, yet they will not close.
Anne Barngrover's first book, Yell Hound Blues, was recently published by Shipwreckt Books, and her chapbook, Candy in Our Brains, co-written with Avni Vyas, is forthcoming with CutBank in the spring. She is currently a PhD student at University of Missouri.
Return to May 2014 Edition