by Allison Leigh Peters
the rapture, or, i'm love rusty, or, the definition of free will in lost, or, most likely, the smoke monster
when I fell asleep for the fourth
time that night in my head and all
around me like so much smoke we took off
every ounce of clothes the socks even and the rubber
bands around our wrists and we ducked
deep under your sheets as though
to hide ourselves from some perverted
writhing grip and with all teeth you
kissed my mouth and it was sharp
but if I'm part Italian I'm part lion and I did
step out for air got on the bus just to go a block
but forgot to pull the string and ended
up five miles away and remember now my cell
phone is broken so I couldn't call or text or tell
you anything you thought I just left you so
what if it meant we are making a big mistake
and get far far away from here or if
it was just to say what are you doing in this library
in the middle of nowhere baby go back
under those sheets where you're allowed
to be naked this way and kissing
honeymoons for singles
The 1
Remind me
again—
how many
plane-ticketless
days were we in bed
almost praying
for orgasm,
our electric loins
drooling out
onto the balconies
& into
the streets?
In-Room Service
Breakfast says what have you been waiting for.
Breakfast has a hunger in its gut.
Breakfast will never get solemnity
until one day it's the last breakfast—
or until one day it's the breakfast.
Breakfast won't want to eat a thing.
On Having and Holding
I'll be on call at your bedside nurturing your instinct
to fear extinction. Brave brevity & delight in delirium,
young gun. That's what I'll tell you. I'll say,
This is how it goes. It is how we are meant to be living.
& you'll fall asleep forever & I'll go on until
not synesthesia
You smell
like a hotel I said
& you said it
was because
you smelled like
booze
You always know
why
all the reasons why
to things but
why?
we only need fumes
bell's seasonal and fleetwood diner meditation
And then I thought of all the times
Then the exchange
of curses like gunshots
but they made us prouder
I am feeling some good things
about life and what
lonely is. I am having some good alone
time with myself and suffering
and hash browns. I can’t tell you the last
time I wanted to give up
Not now. WTF is Time
I am drunk, I am sorry, I am
drunk. Lightyears
Allison Leigh Peters won an Academy of American Poets Prize in 2010 and was selected as a semi-finalist for the "Discovery"/Boston Review Poetry Contest in 2012. She is Founder, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of Orange Quarterly, and her own poems have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Dunes Review, Burner Magazine, and elsewhere. A University of Michigan graduate, Allison currently lives in Traverse City, where she works at an historic elementary school. She volunteers for the National Writers Series and teaches poetry and blogging workshops at Northwestern Michigan College.