I pray for small things
like chips in the next aisle
and for lipstick on her teeth.
I imagine it looking black on the laminate
in the damning fluorescent
but nothing falls from her or far
from where you held it. I want to look
at a map of all the places I have bled:
on Wharf Street dizzy from a tall pour ;
in Brooklyn onto sheets already stained;
on the walk home from Rosie’s with it
pooling in my palms.
There are no words
for when pieces of us leave but I need
to name the places I have left them.
Grief is a thing that does not sleep;
that gnaws at the bones that cradle it.
I drop change on the counter
And walk out in hurry;
It is never far from where it left you.
McCaela Prentice is a Maine writer that recently graduated from St. Lawrence University. Her poetry has previously been featured in Ghost City Review and Honey & Lime Literary Magazine. She was also an honorable mention in the 2019 Small Orange Emerging Woman Poet Honor.
Twitter: @mccaelaa
Instagram: @mccaelaa