How can I be an English major?

by Emily Ramser

A senior in a black bra made me a screwdriver
that tasted like furniture polish,
and I doubled over crying
because I'd forgotten that
I don't know how
to spell furniture without autocorrect
and vodka just makes me sad.

At a gas station in Alabama

by Emily Ramser

I stopped to buy a toothbrush,
so I could kiss my girlfriend,
but the cashier couldn’t stop
contemplating my sex life,
and the man filling up his truck outside was
examining his new shotgun,
so I began thinking about
bending my girlfriend over the glass countertop
and unbuttoning her jeans,
but I needed to buy toothpaste too
unless my girlfriend would just let me pretend to brush my teeth
so that we could leave.

A waitress' tattoos

by Emily Ramser

our waitress has
death dates tattooed
across her teeny tiny
 pale wrists

bracelets encircling, encircling, encircling, encircling
with memories

I see them as she tosses menus, asking us our orders,
there is a name, a name I cannot see, hidden in the shadow of her hand
the shadow of the mountain upon the valley

but she has death dates, dates tattooed across her veins
hands I don’t want touching my food, poisoning it with thoughts of
cemeteries and lilies laid on bodies.