Naming, by Caroline M. Mar

Blank sky: too simple. You are window-streaked, edged in god’s-eye-white. I can see

where you took a breath, where you repeated yourself. Tiny flecks of your own voice, deepening.

Clear as an eyedrop. Settled as a vintage tear. Nothing harried about you, tiny fingers licking

your own edges. You could be a flag, flutter in anticipation of your own Wellfleet wedding.

Something old, something borrowed, a rusty earring back cast aside. You are summer’s

generosity, watermelon’s thinnest rind, your firework tongue in my shellshine mouth.

The antique ocean blooms, watches.

Caroline Mei-Lin Mar is the author of Special Education (Texas Review Press) and the forthcoming chapbook Dream of the Lake (Bull City Press). A high school health educator in San Francisco, she is doing her best to keep her gentrified hometown queer and creative. Carrie is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, an alumna of VONA, and a member of Rabble Collective. She has been granted residencies at Hedgebrook, Ragdale, and VSC, among others.