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published September 2009

Janann Dawkins assists in editing the eclectic literary journal Third Wednesday. Her work has been featured recently or is upcoming in The Ambassador Poetry Project, Anastomoo, Bolts of Silk, Blinking Cursor, Blue Fifth Review, Calliope Nerve, The Daedalus Review, decomP, Existere, Gloom Cupboard, Gutter Eloquence, a handful of stones, Oak Bend Review, The Orange Room Review, right hand pointing, Shoots and Vines and The Stray Branch, among others. Her chapbook, Micropleasure, was published by Leadfoot Press in 2008. A graduate of Grinnell College with a B.A. in American Studies, she now resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Trip to Nowhere

by

Arrested breath became my new­found enemy
as night descended. Light was now my enemy.

I drove straight­away, no deviance of turn­ing
could tear my hands. The wheel was not my enemy.

The halt­ing breath again, at meet­ing you. The bed
beneath us whis­pered gossip—this, our enemy.

My tongue became a mar­ble. The only wit­ness
was your mouth whose words revealed the true enemy.

Too late: the very ghost of your hand befriended
my cheek. At that, my skin flushed, its own enemy.