You aren't in this movie / Letitia Trent

Letitia Trent's work has appeared in the Denver Quarterly, The Black Warrior Review, Fence, Folio, The Journal, Mipoesias, Ootoliths, Blazevox, and many others. Her chapbooks are Splice (Blue Hour Press) and The Medical Diaries (Scantily Clad Press). Her first full-length poetry collection, "One Perfect Bird", is available from Sundress Publications. She was the 2010 winner of the Alumni Flash Writing Award from the Ohio State University's the Journal and has been awarded fellowships from The Vermont Studio Center and the MacDowell Colony.



They are Coming For You, Barbara

As a child,
I wasn't frightened. They came slowly,
stumbling, soft-brained,
flesh bloating purple
away, but nothing more.

The movie dead move
at a crawl, and so the victims
have to stand still or fall
into their outstretched arms.

It once was funny,
the woman limping
in her Sunday pumps
as they lumbered slow
behind her. But now

I understand. Multiply them.
No matter how slowly,

they are coming.
She cannot help
but grow tired, all that running
across frame after frame

of deserted meadow, streets
of quiet cars, trash cans strewn,
through the empty diner, past piled
mashed potatoes and lukewarm coffee.

She decides to hide
until it is over. When their fists
break the windows,
she takes the attic trapdoor. She hides

among the children's pictures
and piled newspapers. The dust
blanket stirs and reassembles
around her. Listen—

the screen door rips from the tin frame,
they scramble
down the narrow farmhouse
hallways. She concentrates

on the particles jumping,
their rise and fall with the rhythm
of some essential pounding.