by Tobi Alfier
Morning light slips under the blackout shade and rouses her from a dream she argued with all night—in her sleep. She grabbles for a barrette pinched under her thigh and pins her hair up without a mirror. Birdsong shines through each messy curl, no matter if anyone cares. Yes, my friend, she may look like a one-woman history of wounds but she’s not talking. She sips her coffee, smiling wide as a late-day shadow, lays out her errands to forbid a left turn— don’t say you’ve never done the same ‘cause you’d be lying. On that note, off she goes into the soul-crushing weather we don’t know what she does, or where she goes, just that she returns a wee bit fortified and naps in her bed that’s never been made, or remade, roses beginning to age in her front window. ______ Tobi Alfier is published nationally and internationally. Credits include War, Literature and the Arts, The American Journal of Poetry, KGB Bar Lit Mag, Washington Square Review, Cholla Needles, The Ogham Stone, Permafrost, Gargoyle, Arkansas Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, and others. She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com).