VOCAB

in a jarred moment beeswax sings and cracks
into sections where you know she drums her nails

Bailey's Bridge is mostly poison so we stayed
in the van even though it was sweaty

it's not so much crayon more like this girl
Vanetta who'd smile in shame because
of her house as worn as a pencil nub

but once I had to wear apron to bathroom baby
don't walk so fast

the turnpike plasticity of seating, you could knee it and
mostly not get caught

there would be some sort of reprieve
if the roof came off in a storm

in slowdance supposed to but in the end
another club for the frizzies

scratching the blue off via razory implements which
underneath might be salt

we learned the line of bunting but what good was it
Steph said Opal was hogging the photo anyway

spiders are not ugly unlike some people I know

hollyhock reminds me of underwear, by that I mean fueling

it took a lot before the tadpole drowned
in its new lungs

because of the method of zipping I insisted
on losing my virginity on it

chainsaw there are two both facing the interstate

orange was the color for a fragile ability to forget
the parking lot

benign is if you show me yours I'll draw a picture

that shirt said Rolling Stone was pretty fresh
he bussed tables at Curinga's and drove a scab-colored car

the smell of canvas in the popup, says Cook
Forest not Cooks

when the flashlight thing happened lucky
was wearing my Don't Drink and Drive shirt his hand
was definitely

the problem is once I decide they can do practically anything

and arrested for chucking an empty keg down the hill

mushrooms grew on the carpet
where the toilet always dripped

for sale were wooden embroidery boxes
of honey thighs I forgive you




POINTS ON 40

out there pavement crickety-crack and miles
of yellow marquees with cheerful omissions of I and R,
an ostrich farm, the ladies room in the family restaurant
had a rotating towel, sad little Sunset Beach
all saggy chaise lounges and concrete and kids eating
marshmallow pies, making things out of sticks
by the chainlink, a region of trailered distress
and mucus, a region of what was saved-up for,
the Western Store, she used to draw semitrucks obsessively,
orange tables filmy with sourpatch residue,
this was nowhere near First Presbyterian, a plentitude
of split-levels, neutral colors, history teacher
with a lipful of chew, the China Buffet, the Long Dog,
the metal hoop on crown of train station emptied
of its clock, acres of carpet in the poolhall basement,
layaway, driveway ruts and pacing the stadium,
the home team never failing to insult our honor,
in the dump some kid's eroded stickers around the edge
of the full-length mirror, dressy department store ladies
on minimum wage, dumpsters aching with grease,
trestles, Foodland wedged under the highway and
the best place to hold a carwash is next to the state store,
he who balanced a half-sheet cake tiptoeing
on parking-lot ice, Friday carnations and deepdish,
the inexpressible joy of banking the eight, she backstage
in tutu and jelly shoes, she in the backseat,
we rolling down an embankment behind which Washington
held off the French, the one try at classiness
smelled like dried flowers, the one thing we knew was how
to lose a fistfight, a dog's circled territory with radius
of chain, a crumbled coon, a grove of nettles
and sliding appliances, turning lane and bakery,
backwash, backed upside the head, a white cross
where he hit her, an empty house he occupied
when bingeing, what they do with used-up
bowling shoes and rental skates, Jesus messages propped
across a chewed lawn, hounds in the buffalo grass,
chow mein in the salad, the afternoon of upset
of crosstown rival, Walk Like a Man
filtered thinly from under her pappap's door
as he slept, we sat on the porch, we looked
over town, looked out at the discount plaza,
we looked out and out and we sang the fightsong




Erika Howsare is an MFA student in poetry at Brown University. Her work has appeared in Chain, FIELD, The New Orleans Review, and Fourteen Hills.


BACK TO ONE

HOME