The warmest night of nineteen—
two women in the phosphorescent
water, writing on each other
with the plankton's glow.
First—single syllables:
once, you, breath,
then one of them tries lavender
and runs out of collarbone.
That time of year, dawn arrives earlier
every day. It arrives and arrives and arrives.
One of those women shivers
like a fortune teller
married to a doctor
on the eve of an epidemic.
The tide will roll back out and, with its wash,
any creature without something to hold onto.
Remember, Body
Jennifer Loyd is a poet and PhD student in West Texas. A former Stadler Fellow and editor for Copper Nickel, West Branch, and Sycamore Review, she also holds an MFA from Purdue University. Her poems and prose, which explore the intersection between private voice and public narratives, appear in the Southern Review, The Rumpus, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, and elsewhere.