by Eliana Carter | Poetry | Fall 2018
In the bowl resting in your palm,
sprinkled in your chicken soup
in between the carrot slices
like pepper flakes, a fairy dust.
Under my breath I repeat it over and over
again. “What’s that?,” you say,
“You keep talking under your breath.
I can’t hear you when you do that.”
“Do what?” I mouth.
Below your tongue
is where you begin to feel it.
It is cold at first (a brainfreeze.)
Then hot (a forehead sweat.)
I count to ten (dizzy, dizzy.) You spin
in circles. On the radio,
bumbling beats on the boombox.
In the garden, a backyard blues.
A firecracker shoots sparks in your soup,
pepper flakes like glitter paint.
Then later it’s a twinkling toe ring
that’s twisted in your palm
which you slide onto my ring finger.
I shake my head and slide it back onto yours
because you are mine.
Wilder Voice Magazine 