Two Poems

elegy underwater

i used to think you an ocean; i was always floating breathless near your coast. you pulled me under in a way that felt like relief, ribbon-waves spinning, filling my lungs till i forgot i couldn’t breathe. dear blue-eyes, dear dark-curled boy, now i’ll think you into midwest dust. everything is strange here: even lying in humid dirt, i am trying to remember you in rippling starlight, grin glittering your face, your hand nestling mine. you specter-savior, the way we lay on golden sand and imagined us, something we could always hope for, never have. our water-lungs deflated in daylight.

needles

i want to build you

a body: weave brand new veins along

your cold arms, lungs blown

like balloons so they float

all their own. i want to sew you

back together, imagine you scar-less

skin and open eyes, if only to forget

your death-high, corpse hugging

steering wheel, still

fingers’ slack grip, track marks lit

up like train chug in full moon

night. oh, what constellation skin

you had, star-bruises

the color of gloaming.

Charlotte Covey is from St. Mary's County, Maryland. She currently lives in St. Louis, and she earned her MFA in Poetry from the University of Missouri -St. Louis in Spring 2018. She has poetry published or forthcoming in journals such as The Normal School, Salamander Review, CALYX Journal, the Minnesota Review, and the Potomac Review, among others. In 2015, she was nominated for an AWP Intro Journal Award. She is managing editor for WomenArts Quarterly.