by Kait Quinn
Poetry
July’s throat roars open, and my thighs are back
on that concrete, dandelion spine, fingers working
the shredded cuffs of my jeans. I always needed
something to busy my hands with when I sat across
from him:
braids of indigo denim thread, stale tortilla chips
cracked to shards, the Sprite tab before it snaps
off the fidget-worn hinge. Lemon-lime is the raw
kiss of first love. Two tongues wrapped in carbonated secrecy
and power-line sizzle. His coffee eyes, flat-ironed fringe,
teeth that have never cracked the jawbreaker of a promise.
He captures me in patient hands, tells me I remind him
of corvids—how I always come home
but never stay.
I once hated myself so much, I gave up
cherry-limeade pit stops on Texas country road trips for
cramped limbs in the backseat of a Honda; traded blooming onion
and molten
lava cake at Chili’s for a deserted AMC parking lot, surrendered
I love you for fuck me,
gooey heart for bruised groin—god forgive me.
Cut your body out of the photos of the boy
who loves you—really loves you—bury them in a grave,
and you will live with a flower bed of memories stuck to your
eyelids: fast-food meet-cute; good morning, Starshine texts; my back
against his chest on my cousin’s twin bed; hushed
late-night phone sex; making out in refrigerator light,
up against
the pickup; the picture he sent me in sunglasses and a gray beanie,
his pink tongue lunged between two splayed fingers—I still dig
through my Google Drive to look at when it’s June and grief
scuffs at the boots of my sanity.
In the moments before the world ends, I’ll search my history
for him, lick his name off my lips like a last meal, repent:
O lord,
what a summer. What a beautiful chaos.
What a tangle of saltwater knots in my hair.
Kait Quinn (she/her) was born with salt in her wounds. She flushes the sting of living by writing poetry. She is the author of four poetry collections, and her work appears in Anti-Heroin Chic, Reed Magazine, Slippery Elm, Watershed Review, and elsewhere. She received first place in the 2022 John Calvin Rezmerski Memorial Grand Prize. Kait is an editorial associate at Yellow Arrow Publishing and a poetry reader for Black Fox Literary Magazine. She enjoys cats, repetition, coffee shops, tattoos, and vegan breakfast. Kait lives in Minneapolis with her partner and their very polite Aussie mix, Jesse. Find her at kaitquinn.com.