Painting: Wanda Choate at Arte de Cristina Faleroni

Lying this way,
your body seems
a perfect place
to catch a willing
current—one
that folds itself
around your back-
bone, retreats
into one rebellious
pool, makes sound
like a rain stick—
your backbone
as rain stick—
as hollowed cactus
turned upside-down
to sprinkle noise,
make you hobble
in dance.
Moving this way,
you seem tied
to the sky on my
invisible string.

____________________

Hannah Dow is a PhD student at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Harpur Palate, Soundings East, and Armchair/Shotgun. She also received an honorable mention in the 2015 AWP Intro Journals Project.