Emily Jean McCollister: You Told Your Father About Me

Maxwell Young

I take my arm up over

my head over the field of

sugar over

your grandmother’s

grave in Ville Platte

I throw my arm like

a boomerang I put it

in your toes

your eyes widen

but they aren’t eyes at

all they are discs

they are

they are tacos

& I want to eat them --

I wonder how

your engines feel

how you moan

how you pirogue

how you back

that ass up

four teen and

seven years

ago that cockroach

took your life

“how unfortunate”

I say every now-

and-again when

I throw tiny

toasters at your tombstone

you told your father about me

you told him I was smart

I ate the pit of a peach

spun down the rabbit

meditated in your

typewriter __ 1775

you told me you trusted me

I had ink imprinted on your

skin: a horse named Samuel

kissed me on the mouth

I needed some sunglasses

left you sitting there beaming

with your shoulder black and wet

my feet playing

soccer on summer

asphalt in Itapeacu

mouth like a hug no chocolate

all silver no string

sun in my face on

your nose

oh if I could

smudge the sweat

do you know you look like Neymar?

I hear Antarctica is tender this time of year

do you have any kids?

would you like to unzip my body

catch a glimpse of whats inside

I heard an old wives tale

that a ghost lives in there

a holygram

Teddy really

he really wrecked

this place all over

have you tasted the traffic?

it's terrible

have you licked the mountains

like I lick your shoulder?

take me there

---

Emily Jean McCollister lives and writes in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where she runs a music venue and creative work-space with a handful of other young entrepreneurs and works for her local arts council. She published her first chapbook in late September of 2016. You can find her chapbook at http://www.thecheesecakewasneverjustcheesecake.com/