Salamander 2025 Fiction Contest

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Escapade

Cecelia Hagen
| poetry

 

Evaporation is the opposite
of a wet dream
the residue of dew
clear drops beaded           clean                         petals holding forth

as the bicycle wheels spun
out of control
behind the offending
beehive.

did I
shock him
with my escapade                             or was it
my tank
top,
my camellia
bush        my squishy laughter
at his skinned knee?

I tried to suck
the poison                        out of my
sting but                           the remedy
was wrong,       only salt                    on my tongue

I should have asked
my grandma, stern                         and terse,
not the cuddly                  pigeon some kids get

but there were her
gem-filled pies
and those tiny sapphires
from the Montana mine
her uncle toiled in

I pedaled off
on the bike
he didn’t need

his knee                           would heal

and I                    by then                             long gone

Cecelia Hagen is the author of Entering (Airlie Press) and the chapbooks Among Others (Traprock Books), and Fringe Living (26 Books Press). Her poems have appeared in more than fifty periodicals, including New Ohio Review, Guesthouse, Zócalo Public Square, On the Seawall, High Desert Journal, EcoTheo, and Zyzzyva.

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