by Sean Whitney
There are towers of stone and mud and she wants nothing of them, seeing them dirty. She is dirty. She is dirty and the towers are dirty but the towers’ dirt runs deeper than her skin.
She spits, not for saliva, but for arrogance, giving back to the ground the only thing she took that day.
She is rough mostly. Her hands crush beer cans against her thighs, and I can’t stop staring at her knees. She wears skirts, but climbs in reeds, covered in scratches, and I think this is stupid, but I am still impressed.
All birds call her name, but the crows sing her song, harsh, but forever there, telling stories of farmers brazen enough to fire at the murder that she is known to be.
She’s easy, greasy, beautiful, my tenth page girl. I don’t want to know her perfume, a stocking stuffer from senior year, when grandma visited. Sometimes she’s riper than brown bananas, and about as soft, so I appreciate it.
It only makes sense that I consider her my second love, to the Mississippi river, both powerful, constantly running, sometimes at my front door, and considered gross by most of my friends.
I am scared by her, and I’ve never heard myself moan before.
She is a plane crash in the ocean, all screaming, wet, and with fire.
She can lay me in her muddy waters, and I can take the drinks I need, tasting her hair as it wraps around me, and.