Kat Harvey

Emily Corwin
| poetry

 

—after Casper (1995)

 

In Friendship, Maine, in the mansion of Whipstaff

I waft in eyelet lace, floor-length out the steamer trunk.

 

There are steeples and myrtle and my dad, who says,

’Night, Bucket, Mom who said, Stardust in the eyes, rosy

 

cheeks and a happy girl in the morning. She rinsed herself

with ivory soaps. She didn’t go where she was supposed

 

to go. Dusty star anise, eyebright, the rosarian says,

good morning. And you, what were you like as a living thing?

 

I’d like to make contact. Can you hurt me? Can I hurt you?

Slither with me to the Lazarus machine, primordial muck.

 

I’d like to see you not see-through. Can I keep you? Earthy as a

cabbage rose—my woody perennial, my mortal slow dancer.

Emily Corwin‘s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Passages North, DIAGRAM, Ninth Letter, New South, and elsewhere. Her book, Sensorium, is now out with the University of Akron Press. She lives and works in Michigan with her love-person, Joe, and her very photogenic cat, Soup.

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