by Bailey Lambeth
Off I-40 just past Winslow,
she climbed muscled boulders
as the sun’s shift ended.
Her hands hummed a god
she first met at a paper mill.
Coming back from Shreveport,
the earth strobed and white
crowns of a Bradford Pear
charmed you, suffocated by
green needles. Powdery
bones mock you both.
She watched her mother shingle
like rows of tongue-tied roofs,
but you married sunken beams
and she’s not much of a jewelry
person. Your hand sails her thigh,
now she’s the child flying off red
cliffs wondering what you’re like on
Sundays when you mow your lawn.
Baieley Lambeth recently graduated from ULM with a bachelor’s degree in English and is currently enrolled in an MFA program.