E. Kristin Anderson is a multi-Pushcart-nominated poet and author who grew up in Westbrook, Maine and is a graduate of Connecticut College. She has a fancy diploma that says “B.A. in Classics,” which makes her sound smart but has not helped her get any jobs in Ancient Rome. Kristin the co-editor of Dear Teen Me, an anthology based on the popular website and her next anthology, Hysteria: Writing the female body, is forthcoming from Sable Books. She is currently curating Come as You Are, an anthology of writing on 90s pop culture for ELJ Publications. Her poetry has been published worldwide in many magazines and anthologies and she is the author of eight chapbooks including A Guide for the Practical Abductee (Red Bird Chapbooks), Pray Pray Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the middle of the night (Porkbelly Press), Fire in the Sky (Grey Book Press), and We’re Doing Witchcraft (Hermeneutic Chaos Press). Kristin recently took a position as Special Projects Manager for ELJ and is a poetry editor at Found Poetry Review. Once upon a time she worked at The New Yorker. She now lives in Austin, TX where she works as a freelance editor and is trying to trick someone into publishing her full-length collection of erasure poems based on women’s and teen magazines. She blogs at EKristinAnderson.com and tweets at @ek_anderson.
One hour, fifty minutes
Your eyelids are so heavy—
a luxury low across your hips.
We rip the black strap, breezy and wanted;
you breathe normally, mix the rest.
I would remain clear, flying disarmed,
making value of exits all the way to shore.
I don’t think I could apologize
for the cross, the remaining eleven minutes.
So white, so done, all the way forward,
you don’t want a pleasure, a departure.
Stop screaming. You could have anything;
we’re about to go really fast.
You’re not listening. Gate to gate,
the red surf is sleepy.
At your waist I pull. Think. For good reason,
your shoes lead to exits.
In the delta, fired up, this is yours. Right here.
how you are, on the side of the road.