This Anticipated Goodbye, Swarming by Lucia LoTempio

for Ruben

On the highway there is enough snow

For the sky to be white as a Stephen King novel

& every car is its own brimming storm eye anticipating overlap

I will deny blankets & water jugs in the trunk—anticipate desert-islanding

In gridlock            Your hand is lazy on my thigh & this is dangerous

You are a rhetorical question—there is no space for this unshowered mourning

Low simmering pan expectant of boiling, I have grown into you

Overflowing soft-boiled egg—no, you are not so precious—

Overflowing overhead light, hold to a willing ceiling fan

I look for you like a plagiarism ; like a colander letting rice

Gently, with notice, I am unbalance ; I am haunted

With caution for this anticipated goodbye            I will make you

At the station ; I will put it in park

To get closer to you is to give in to anything but twigs wrapped in fat snow

I am unsure if I am insistent on any spike in temperature ;

Insistent on this balmy aftermath of unbuckling

Demanding into me & opening & opening & opening

Lucia LoTempio hails from Buffalo, NY and is currently an instructor and MFA candidate at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a sucker for tiny animals and tiny babies. Her poetry has been or will be published in Linebreak, Vinyl, Bayou, THRUSH, Gandy Dancer, and more. She was a finalist for the Black Warrior Review 10th Annual Contest in Poetry. Lucia counts for VIDA, does publicity for H_NGM_N, is a Poetry Editor for The Adroit Journal, and reads for Slice Magazine.

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A Long Goodbye by Lydia Armstrong Arson by Christine Langill Liam Day reads Archeaopteryx Two poems by Nathan Kemp