A Skeuomorph to Nova Scotia

Lucia LoTempio

 

 

                                                                                                  Most of the time I guess I felt all right.

                                                                                                                            —John Darnielle

 

To remember how easy we sleepwalked in the garden to feast on dirt & woke up

 

five-a-clock-shadowed with topsoil, when we could find slices of ground

 

whose snow could be pushed soft with ungloved hands & bare feet: I blow

 

money on a pesto dinner that makes you sick, but doesn’t make me sick. I want to bring myself to wet

 

washcloths as carby green alphabets avalanche out—corner the hotel comforter, outsource pillowslips.

 

Sleeping, we braid-roll & exchange bed-sides, hoard alarm clocks & wake-up-calls—find me running,

 

two fingers through grout, eyes shut, breath even (the way you had thumbed my wanton buds

 

of upper lip hair), recycling pesto, gums planting whole pine nuts—you refuse

 

to incardinate me: leave & I fold open:—too awake to distinguish

 

dull sweat left between our shoulders.

 

 

~~~~~

Lucia LoTempio hails from Buffalo, NY and studies literature at SUNY Geneseo. Her work has been or will be published in Weave Magazine, The Boiler: A Journal of New Literature, and Gandy Dancer. Additionally, she is the managing editor for Gandy Dancer, which publishes the creative work of any student in the SUNY system.