Picture a sensitive

nail-bed or the abyss

of any schooled

entrance clipped

back with the longest

single Hello Kitty

barrette lost in a

nightmare escape

from the wrong

hotline companion

who sent a beehive

of dry cotton candy

on a spooled paper

cone that could play

records with the right

intravenous needle

rolling a message of

slumber party trundle

beds out from where sun

blistered every tender

lip until we’d swear

it wasn’t a cold sore

for one beach kiss,

one last chance to lick

bottle-breath or insert

fingers into puckers

like the older girls

who stood at restroom

mirrors drawing indexes

(slow) through their

mouths to remove

all excess traces of

evidence, of glossy

nothing-but-trouble

O-hole pinkness.

 

 

 

Erika Meitner is the author of Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore (Anhinga Press, 2003), and the forthcoming Ideal Cities (Harper Perennial, 2010), which was selected as a 2009 National Poetry Series winner. She is currently an assistant professor of English at Virginia Tech, where she teaches in the MFA program. You can read more about her at www.erikameitner.com.