Off for long drive or a smoke, up
and out the door where you leave me
seeking, lonely for a spot
soft but not
spoiled, not fuzz
of unseemly growth, not brat
like catlike laze the lack
of work. No. Less a
push than a pull and road
-weary doesn’t count, I said
so.
Soft is not puffed
up tough to escort me home
after I close the store each
night alone, menacing to scare
off possible predators in the dark. (There’s
tenderness there, sure,
and I know how
hard you work, could work
for me.)
I don’t mean shoulder torn from
shoveling snow; I do not
mean the ways a body goes
weak with time, with age, with
-out assent, like how you cannot
carry a tune, no use in battling
the stream. Like how we wilt. We
will but in the time until, give
me lush-spots scared-and-sacred spots miss-
me-on-that-shift walked-away-but-still-
smelled-me thoughts I want will drink it up.
Laura Eppinger graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA in 2008 with a degree in Journalism, and she’s been writing creatively ever since. She’s the blog editor at Newfound Journal. Her full publication list lives here: http://lolionthekaap.blogspot.com/p/creative-writing.html