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Emily Light

Emily Light’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Lunch Ticket, SOFTBLOW, Into the Void, and Star 82 Review, among others. She teaches English and lives in Boonton with her husband and son.

in the perpetual construction site of my early adolescence 

looming orange dirt beckoned
my soiled bicycle
to prove
I grew out of the grass planted
in the retention pond before
houses were built
pipes inched through
temporary causeways from which I
stared        laid hands on bare roots
reaching toward the half-naked sun
as if God would replant
                                      undo what was done

I planted
my feet       took daisies by the stems
lost border trees to bottle castaways
honeysuckle entrails in the orange
dirt staining my knees      still festers
beneath my fingernails
it’s just plants uprooted
        just pebbles and stones
             just bones and homes
 

Litter

A Dunkin’ Donuts cup, size large, lid not included.
Two packs of Camels – crumpled hourglasses.
A Corona bottle skittering away from your big toe.
One plastic Walmart bag, letters catching branches.
Half a notebook, boasting in glitter pen: Allie loves Ben.
Sixteen cigarette stubs angled like broken ankles.
A fawn, tongue piercing her freckled lips.

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est. 2018
  • Home
  • ISSUES
    • Issue One
    • Issue Two
    • Issue Three
    • Issue Four
  • Submit
  • Contact