#haley larson

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From Charles Bridge │ Haley Larson

Originally published by Shampoo Poetry

Picture this – a Tuesday snapshot of myself, alone on a curb of what was

surely Wenceslas Square. And you and your love du jour (this is Sunday)

are one in the lovesick population next to me, all holding your chins

in your hands, locking limbs in two by two enslavement. I might find this

disgusting like I just found my life’s work for something like seventy-five cents

on a half-off the half-offs table, no worn corners or tinges of love,

not selling along a premium piece of real estate and false esteem. Now

I am the proud owner of our home. I’ll dress the spaces in Kafka books and independence, then the emptiness

won’t seem such a one-deep existence in a two-bedroom flat. Is it so scurrilous to live in this

downfallen property? It’s plumbed, and on a side note this side street has electricity. Like my touch

could turn this pile to fortune and back, you believe in the good and see the impossible

evil inside of me. When I lay down three coins on a sale table in Prague, I expect nothing

short of fulfillment. Unhand those pages and our past and see them depreciate, before your eyes

wander back to your lover. And in pictures hung on the walls of your home you’ll be asking: Who

might the girl alone in the middle of those chin-cupping couples be?

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When Haley Larson was twenty, she backpacked alone through eleven countries where she hiked up (and fell down) the bulbous slopes of Montserrat, slept on frosty ship decks from Croatia to Italy to Greece, and was reprimanded by Bosnian border guards about her age, gender, and general aloneness. Her father speaks to her in German, and she currently pursues her MFA in poetry at Colorado State University.