#wow writes

[wowbright]

Clothes Hanger

~~~

She slides the fabric

off my shoulders

brushes my curves with her fingertips

But her touch is fleeting

lingering only long enough to remove the garment

She does not let me rest against her

like the cool rayon breathing against her collarbone

but leaves me hanging

~~~

[writer-of-worlds]

I'm writing a very sad fic, and I will give y'all a warning on it now before posting it later:

I'm sorry.

[wowbright]

Language Loss

(June 12 & Nov. 9, 1995; Aug. 25, 2025)

~~~

I remember the words but

not the methods we used

to put them together, the phrases

we hollered between us, back

and fourth as our bicycles

rickety-rickety-rick-rick-ricked

down the cobblestone slopes.

The words I remember

mean these things:

Stop. On-the-contrary. Parrot.

Homesickness. Shore.

Boundary (border). Spring (source).

Loss. They aren't enough

to tell you what I want to say

no matter how I arrange them.

I can't remember

how to order things

to make meaning.

Sometimes, I dream

of you speaking

words and sentences bubbling like a brook,

everything flowing so easily

- things I've forgotten how to say

when I'm awake,

though I will always understand them.

In my dream last night, you called me

by my other name:

the one in your language,

the one you gave me.

You joked over the racket of our bike wheels

the rush of the downward slide,

words disappearing over the ledge.

I laughed, but didn't answer.

I don't speak your language anymore.

~~~

[wowbright]

Trigonometry, Two Weeks Before Winter Break

~~~

None of this makes sense

-- or rather, it feels like it's on the cusp of making sense, but if I think about it too closely

it stops.

I miss the intuitiveness of algebra.

I miss the ignorance of childhood.

Caitlin sits next to me sometimes.

She's tall and bird-boned.

I dreamt last night she could fly,

took my hand and tugged me into the air

a floating easier than swimming

no resistance to pull through

just sun and sky.

She's late today:

flushed as she sinks into her chair,

bound by gravity, fishing

through her backpack, flinging

gum and Tylenol onto her desk, then

a ruler,

two pens,

a pocket calendar --

She huffs. Her hair

flies from her face, carried

by her breath, the way

she carried me last night.

Is this what you need?

I lean across the aisle, hand open,

pencil perched on my palm,

sparrow on a leafless branch.

She smiles,

lips spreading like wings.

She touches my hand when she takes the pencil.

It's warmer than it was in my dream

and alive

and I'm up in the air again

like I was last night

but it's more than sun and sky.

It's her smile, too,

and the way her eyes shift color like

a blue jay's wing flapping

in and out of shadow.

All of this makes sense.

~~~

[wowbright]

Adolescence in July — Kent County, Virginia

*

The air is thick like saliva

drooling warmth onto our skin.

It licks up from the blacktop.

It tongues out from crumbling brick walls

the color of campfire.

We drive.

Sharon waves at strangers

— they do that down here

(even stranger? the strangers wave back) —

and when we drive over the tracks

she squeals Lift your feet

so you don't get knocked up!

I keep my feet down.

Not that I want to get knocked up

but parthenogenesis does not happen in humans

and if Jesus's mother was a virgin

then the sperm must have gotten in her

another way

and it wasn't train tracks.

Maybe the flame of the Holy Spirit carried it to her

as hot and inescapable as today's pregnant sky.

Or maybe it was lips

sultry with spring heat.

I watch Sharon drive,

hands at ease on the wheel,

shifting in and out of lanes like it's natural, like a spark

snaking through kindling.

But me? I keep failing

my driver's test. When I'm behind the wheel,

the road becomes a wet log, heavy and resistant;

the heat is there, but

the fire won't ignite.

Later, the sun will flare red,

set the back-country ablaze

as it alights on the horizon.

I'll fall asleep on the floor of Sharon's room, windows open,

cicada song swimming through the steaming air,

— mate in search of mate —

desire crackling louder than fire.

*

[wowbright]

Europe, Cold War, 1982

~~~

In the summer of bomb drills,

of mosquitoes and nightmares,

we drove sweaty-thighed to our nearest relatives,

picked cherries and scooped strawberry ice cream.

We shuffled our cards and played War,

empty bowls on the floor.

No one ever won.

~~~

[wowbright]

to the person who cries on my shoulder when things get bad & ignores me the rest of the time

(written on a November 1 when I was a teen; lightly edited)

~~~

So I guess I'm a Kleenex

all crumpled up

and lying in the trash can

among plastic wrappers and cotton balls,

but having served a purpose:

Your system was all clogged

and you had to get it out,

and I was there to catch it.

Alas,

I'm not the kind of Kleenex that comes with lotion inside it

to make everything easy and smooth.

I made your nose chap.

It's just the way I was made.

So you threw me away.

There's still a lot of gunk left inside you,

but now that I'm in the trash can,

who will help you get free of it?

~~~

[wowbright]

Uno Game, Germany, 1982

~~~

I was called a sore loser

and though my cousin gloated

she was never called a sore winner

~~~