Space
Karaline Stamper
after Kathryn Smith
I’m trying to think about coffee with too much
creamer. I’m trying to think about driving
myself, always on the wrong side of the road,
nothing but cornfields, as we shout to the empty moon
about the maybes who couldn’t communicate.
I never should have gotten into his passenger seat.
I’m trying to think about the reservoir at the bottom of the hill, its bent
trees thick with green and trunks stripped
of color. Nothing is like the song of non-
biodegradable plastics or my parents
using pronouns that no longer fit. I remember being
so young I thought the bathtub drain would suck
me away into the sewers—a girl who apologizes
without apologizing. The ambiguity of if.
Jane Austen questions the usefulness of men,
floccinaucinihilipilification–a wisp, a trifle, nothing, a hair, the smell
of chemicals after dye.
Karaline Stamper is a full-time creative writing student and part-time linguist at Central Washington University. Her obsessions include stars, intersectional feminism, and the magic of language. Her work has been published in the Acorn Review and the Manastash Literary Journal.