Zoe Reay-Ellers
Out of all the Richard Siken poems that I show you
You like “Little Beast” best. It is
summer and you used to think
about suicide. We rub up against that
late at night sometimes and I wonder
who you were before June and me,
computer keys sticky with popsicle
juice. I can’t remember what kind
are your favorite. I won’t ask. To me
memory is every couch I’ve met,
roadside or otherwise. Conversations
are motorways, the stereo is on. You’re
in the passenger seat: six-three but curled
down. Heart as close to your chest
as it can be, knees pulled. I call you
tall, dark, and handsome but not out
loud. I am trying to learn how to be
seen and not heard because you
demand docility from a girl that shivers
keys into claws at night and bears them
at the ground. You are overgrown eyes,
hunted or haunted. We both expect undoing
so let me be yours, a gentle-handed
apocalypse that bares waxing crescents
from beneath your chest. Tell me what I am
to you, tell me again. Tell me the truth
about December and airplanes and
double eight. The jagged-toothed trees
beside us are just a mouth, roll down
your window and let the wind turn you
wild, carve your face with cold. Look in the
rearview at the road passing beneath
the taillights, isn’t it fast and beautiful?
summer and you used to think
about suicide. We rub up against that
late at night sometimes and I wonder
who you were before June and me,
computer keys sticky with popsicle
juice. I can’t remember what kind
are your favorite. I won’t ask. To me
memory is every couch I’ve met,
roadside or otherwise. Conversations
are motorways, the stereo is on. You’re
in the passenger seat: six-three but curled
down. Heart as close to your chest
as it can be, knees pulled. I call you
tall, dark, and handsome but not out
loud. I am trying to learn how to be
seen and not heard because you
demand docility from a girl that shivers
keys into claws at night and bears them
at the ground. You are overgrown eyes,
hunted or haunted. We both expect undoing
so let me be yours, a gentle-handed
apocalypse that bares waxing crescents
from beneath your chest. Tell me what I am
to you, tell me again. Tell me the truth
about December and airplanes and
double eight. The jagged-toothed trees
beside us are just a mouth, roll down
your window and let the wind turn you
wild, carve your face with cold. Look in the
rearview at the road passing beneath
the taillights, isn’t it fast and beautiful?
Biography
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Zoe Reay-Ellers (She/her) is a writer from Washington State. She edits for a host of literary magazines, and her work has appeared in a number of different places, including The Blue Marble Review and The Eunoia Review.
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