Sweet Thing

By Carolyn Adams

She was a tall, slender girl,
pretty, gamine as a deer.

One day, after gym, she showed
me her twin.  A tiny ceramic doe
cradled in cotton,
in a pink paper box.
She’d taken it from a store.

She tenderly moved the wrap,
whispering that
she’d named it Sweet Thing.

She treasured this stolen thing.
I worried, certain
someone would find us.
But she loved it so.
And she shared it with me.
I never knew that contraband
could be so adored.

That was the first time
I learned that theft
could equal love.

Night Work

Carry me off to bed,
lay me down gently.
I’ll drift in soft cotton
on a warm night sea
until I slam the bulkhead.

I’ll find myself
in the abandoned house,
the empty store,
the wretched schoolyard.
There’ll be a predator
with a dagger smile,
its breath hot on my throat.
It will turn and fix its eyes
on me.  And I’ll run.

Or there’ll be a man I can’t
get rid of.  He’ll ford the
windowsill, wade through
the front door.
He’ll demand my bed,
sex, a place at the table.
I’ll know his name.
I’ll half-recognize him.

There’ll be more
I won’t understand.

It will take all night, but
I’ll do the work.
The work that gets
me out of here.

The Map Dream

I trace the shape of continents,
marking cities with pins,
seas with fingertips.

And then I’m swimming
in one of the oceans
I’ve recently named.

The water is warm,
the sun is kind.
But I’m afraid
of what lurks just under.

There’s an island nearby
and that’s
what I’m aiming for.

I pull out the map to chart
a course.  But my destination’s
lost in a deep fold
of the ancient paper,
it’s getting wet.

And something’s disturbed
in the water.

BIO

Carolyn Adams’ poetry and art appear in Amsterdam Quarterly, Blue Collar Review, and 1870 Poetry, et al. She has authored four chapbooks, and has been nominated for a Pushcart prize and Best of the Net. A staff editor for Mojave River Review, she is also a poetry editor for VoiceCatcher.