Even now people call her and are
called away, invite her ministrations
with cookies and milk, heroin and
Black Label. You can see her
in the background of photos after
fame or tragedy has struck—a faint
blurriness around the head, a smudge
like a kiss where she's just been.
I tried, like you, to make her flesh,
watched the falls carve her breasts
from veined granite. I followed her
as you will, and found in her touch
the shallowness of my own skin.
Even here, in this, I hear her voice's
ongoing promise, the spellbound
song of a hull first caressing rock.
Jeff Ewing's poems and fiction can be found in literary journals including ZYZZYVA, Crazyhorse, Southwest Review, Sugar House Review, Saint Ann’s Review, and Willow Springs. He is the author of the short story collection The Middle Ground, forthcoming in February 2019, from Into the Void Press.