stricken

I know you will know what I mean—that I am meant for you, back in the alcoves, you come thudding in the nightfall and I am fallen, felled like a poplar in the heartland, yes. back there is the trees, yes. I carry the eyebright on my back, yes, among all this bacteria and loam. I am never able to keep someone. and already in my side—a long spoke piercing, a slash liquid—something to lay your hands into.

Emily Corwin is an MFA candidate in poetry at Indiana University-Bloomington and the former Poetry Editor for Indiana Review. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Gigantic Sequins, Day One, Hobart, Yemassee, THRUSH, and elsewhere. She has two chapbooks, My Tall Handsome (Brain Mill Press) and darkling (Platypus Press) which were published in 2016. Her first full-length collection, tenderling, is forthcoming in 2018 from Stalking Horse Press. You can follow her online at @exitlessblue.