Sara Peck




TUESDAY

add an ocean we’d be
dear
            Tuesday
                                    this morning
makes me splinter

add we’d be
                          single-spaced troublesome

saying goodbye in hallways
somehow together
making toast

how (did) I want
                          a hand in your
going
                          home like a campfire

sleep in this something marvelous
                          (here) my throat

*

in the kitchen
what if I love
                          the wrong thing

the most morning (I know) versus

this afternoon
the hummingbird (yes, needs) to discuss

we missed the summer again

if one were to draw up a line graph of absence
                          there would be a

vacation in the fall

there’s the dream I’m
on the el tracks somewhere

                          someone with intensity is there
maybe it’s you say these train
tracks are mine

*

there is a year
            the biggest star my mouth

you lie wide minutes
you lay (all ways) sideways


traffic you weathered

the rain but there’s nowhere empty
to put it 





ILLINOIS WHAT PRICE WATER

get back there is the dirt not giving 

it won’t feed you I am using 

my door as a boat now 


we teach our chests still alive

you break my ears there are too 

many goddamn branches 


about stubble my nose a sun

peel I want to live with 


in the nettles we found 

your mistaken faith sticks 

with the best parts of lying 

down leaking I learn to be the hollow

sound in a too big rain 

the dirt you are crying where 







Sara Peck
is living in Charleston, South Carolina, where she sells used books, swims in the dark, and writes poems with middle schoolers on an island. She received an MFA a year ago. She is published or forthcoming with OmniVerse, Everyday Genius, and Versal, among others.