A Sonnet, Because I Didn’t Want to Say, “I Already Knew”
I stood in an evening-scrubbed field. Fireflies blinked
through the eyes of every summer I didn’t
share with someone I missed. There was a fence,
two dark lines and the suggestion of breaching.
When I felt the suggestion of closeness. I birthed
a question. She answered, her mouth a line of darkness.
I let her untruth me across the distance.
Her voice was every summer we didn’t share,
which was every summer. In between the seasons
lies the same field. What is truth. A blink in the evening
rather than a wall of light. I forgive the distance necessary
to breach the unvoiced. When we saw the fence was
no wall, only darkness breaching, she said, “I lied to you,”
and I told her, “It’s still a season for fireflies”
what heat
teeth disguised as pearls to necklace his throat, a tender
nest of promises humming response to me / to me
the verse & vice, written in summer sweat & ripened over distance,
yes, horizon – the furthest thing from her is the brightest desire –
she would thread her name with silk but I would stain /
I would char, smoke-sweet linger – less campfire,
more arson: what heat / what heat gains its fingertips from words
the way he does, palming my lines / lines are made to be bolded &
envelopes made to be licked – yes, I know that tongue and it me / me / me / men
are so easy to read, but they like how it feels &
he is no exception
Maggie Rue Hess (she/her) is a graduate student and former high school English teacher living in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her partner and their two pups. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Minnesota Review, Connecticut River Review, Backchannels Journal, and other publications. She is currently (re)learning how to roller skate.
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