Eli Karren
Dara-Lyn Shrager is the co-founder and editor of Radar Poetry. She holds an MFA from Bennington College and a BA from Smith College. Her poems appear in many journals, including The Iowa Review, The Los Angeles Review, The Greensboro Review, Thrush, Salamander, Southern Humanities Review, and Yemassee. Her articles have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Magazine, and The New York Times. Her poetry collection, Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee was published by Barrow Street Press in 2018.
Love Poem in Which the Runner-Up from The Bachelor Returns Home
Maybe you’ll see her in the grocery store and smile like you know her.
Maybe you’ll hold open the door, failing to realize it’s automatic.
You might, if so inclined, ask for her accompaniment to the venison dinner
at the Sportsman’s club. And if you’re lucky, she’ll say yes. She’ll not scoff
as you do donuts in the parking lot. As you pick her up in a camouflage suit,
driving a mud-covered Jeep. She might be willing to return to this old life.
To the quiet of a dirt road at dusk, to watch the leaves turn their coats.
If you’re lucky, she doesn’t remember you. How once, in middle school,
you said her sister had a haircut like Hitler’s and so she chased you
out of the art room, holding a paintbrush like a dagger. Do you think
she remembers pushing you into the bleachers and spitting in your face?
When she saw you in the checkout line did she remember shame or pleasure,
her chest heaving against yours, the warmth of her legs as she straddled you,
threatening to poke your eye out. On a night like tonight, with winter
advancing like a regiment of redcoats, she just might take you home
and forgive you. Might let you undress before her, take off
the pockmarked skin of your adolescence and lay in her bed.
She wouldn’t dare make you whole again, but won’t stare
as the moonlight transforms you. Makes you someone she’s never met.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Image by Miguel A. Padrinan from Pexels
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
© 2024 Iron Oak Editions
Stay Connected to Our Literary Community. Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Eli Karren is a poet and educator based in Austin, TX. His work can be found in the Harvard Review, Cimarron Review, Free State Review, and the anthology Turn it Up: Music in Poetry from Jazz to Hip Hop. He is a graduate of the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
Listen:
