Wish You Were Here
Here is where I wish you, with dry tongue and a language to scratch off, to wager on. If you were here, I’d wish no more on your fine ridges, your dime-spines—gladly I’d quit this decrepit clay, slip a concrete comb in your hair. This girl you’re after is reckless, wrecks more than she realizes. Wish you were left with chapped lips, raw from fixing the weather. If you were a wish, I’d have you burned off a cake, from a wick like a stake. This girl is floating off on an ember, a spark sticking to your shirt, igniting your hair. O but when you hear a wish, half-close your ears, give her some soft lighting. There’s no privacy for a girl, her body built for other bodies. You were herded there, out clipping roses, drive-by holler: NICE BUSH. Don’t wake up; unleaf, unhedge. Prune her inconvenient limbs. Find your own handwriting in the mailbox, in the loop of her hands. She wants your stamp, your list, your last—post-haste, your hazard of dust-and-bone.
Colleen Coyne is the author of two poetry chapbooks: This Document Should Be Retained as Evidence of Your Journey (Jacar Press) and Girls Mistaken for Ghosts (dancing girl press). Her work has appeared in DIAGRAM, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Sou’wester, and elsewhere. She lives in Massachusetts, where she is an associate professor of English at Framingham State University, and she travels frequently to explore historic cemeteries, national parks, and other sites of memory.
