this is my favorite spot on campus, he shares. secret. chin tilted,
pointing to a window. yellow walls
and a framed window surrounded by the night.
a statue peers at us (it knows; pities me) (i should
name her; she’s important to me now. julia? chelsea?
mablemarblemarlble mabel. ?
gown of silk and hair of stone
she is elegant
i wish my breasts sat like hers RE: frozen
and i wish i was stared at by him like she is
[his favorite spot on campus]
she looks down upon us, regal. i look at her and she understands understands that his name sits
on my lips and lingers on my fingers, that i look
at him like he looks at her
favoritespotoncampus
understands that when i come to visit her it’s to see him.
she would have held my limp body beneath her bosom by my
elbows, and we would have watched him rest beneath her window.
it’s my spot too, now. he has to share //he can’t have everything// (he’s tried)
has mabel seen any other girls standing
in the dark by that yellow wall, under the arched window,
necks craned|side by side in silence?
she won’t tell me (i asked//begged//said it’s for my own
good) he can’t do that anymore. not good for me // for anyone. mabel agrees.
he doesn’t understand understands, just doesn’t care
wants me to dangle [likes me best when i dangle; so i
dangle].
Sophie Clarkin is an emerging writer and recent Wheaton College, MA graduate with her BA in Creative Writing & Literature and Film & New Media Studies. She received the Helen Meyers Tate Memorial Prize for Original Verse in May 2023 and her work has appeared in Rushlight, the oldest student-run literary magazine in the country. In her free time, she enjoys reading romance books with a cat in her lap.
Featured image by Vlad Kutepov.
