Hands

by Sarah E. Alderman

Sweetest slut-puppy in the whole litter
With green eyes that echo the ocean
Its depth and uncompromising loyalty
To anything that is named love or disguised as
Did I fall out of the box?
Your favorite crayon
Your favorite hue of blue-green
Waiting for you to turn me over in your hands
Until I have turned
Purple, black, red
All the colors of bruised and bleeding
I am no longer my own
You make me wonder if I ever was
I am not a chameleon
But I learn to turn shades
According to your mood swings
The heat of your palms melting
Off such naive and silly things
Like ambition, like identity
Who needs self awareness, confidence, esteem
When in the presence of a supernova
Filling the sky with your temper
Temperamental heat
Eruptions, explosions

Sculpting spine until it is fragile and brittle
Like the burnt-out wick of a candle
Or the husk of the tallest pine
That cannot bend with the wind
Only sway in place
And still your hot heavy hands
Move over me

Battleship

by Sarah E. Alderman

We play Battleship in bed

Our memories the pegs

The darkness our divider

The ceiling our board

Like children at a slumber party we giggle

As we call out positions

And it has been so long

Since a night we spent together

Was filled with sounds of our laughter

You reach for my hand in the dark

Breaking our moment of abandon

And innocent pleasure

I pretend to be in the act of rolling over

Shoving my fingers beneath my head

Just out of your reach I call out another guess

You pause as if to think, as if you weren’t hurt

By my backward advances

Then you interrupt our silence

By making me promise not to cheat

I cross my fingers beneath the pillow

And I agree

I do not want to be cruel

In my attempt to be kind

Sparing your feelings has become a fulltime job

But I let you believe what you will

By telling you a lie

“You win,” I whisper, in the still

And let you enfold me in your arms

As I pretend I am somewhere else

Anywhere else but here