by Samantha DeFlitch
Near the Ohio line. There’s two of them.
You didn’t see them so you didn’t believe me.
But I saw lots of things and so did you.
So did everyone. Hear this: I saw a sign
use back door for helium, which was funny.
I saw the last flight out of Rome and also
an evening that was thick, heavy on the block
that went dusk too early and also I saw a mother
three houses down who shook without knowing
why; all these things were concerning to me so
I said tomorrow I will call my brother, maybe.
I swallowed a pill; I swallowed a pine cone.
O long days in a house that is not a home.
O loose dogs wild & bolting into the night.
Samantha DeFlitch received her MFA from the University of New Hampshire, where she is the Associate Director of the Connors Writing Center. She is the author of Confluence (Broadstone Books, 2021). Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, Appalachian Review, On the Seawall, and Hobart, among others, and she is the 2018 recipient of the Dick Shea Memorial Award for Poetry. She lives in New Hampshire with her corgi dog, Moose.
Emerge Literary Journal 