You've lived many lifetimes like this: holding back, hands folded, embodying the family code: do not give yourself away. No wonder you let the Shadow lure you into fast cars, tilt the whiskey flask to your lips: Girls like you like the sweet burn. No moon. Scent of cut hay. Gravel roads that end in trouble. As long as you succumb to the trance of he made me, who can blame you? A voice says, Remember this: No one owns you. You owe nothing to no one. Bats dive from the abandoned loft, arrow-winged, fork-tailed. Surely it has never been this dark.
—Submitted on 02/13/2023
Debra Kaufman‘s most recent collection is God Shattered (Jacar 2019). Her poems have appeared in Tar River Poetry, The Phare, The Healing Muse, North Carolina Literary Review, and the anthology Crossing the Rift (Press 53, 2021), among other journals. She lives in North Carolina.
Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication. Click here to submit.
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