Somewhere a crossroads at night,
the devil, that old blues song.
Like every season, I’m best at leaving.
I dowse for water. When I said
You are my everything
I meant else.
Somewhere coffin nails, dirt.
You’ll say I’m being morbid
but that’s the spell.
Like a good storm, a train rumbles
in your bones before. I wish when I’d said
I’ll miss you I’d meant it.
Somewhere, every other woman I’ve been:
the mistress, the arsonist, the water-witch.
I burnt all my bridges without striking match.
I thought you smelled of pine
until I learned gin.
It’s every o’clock somewhere.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 16, Issue 1.
Heather Sommer earned her MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in decomP magazinE, H.O.W. Journal, Columbia Poetry Review and [PANK]. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Zak, and cat, Jade.
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