MIDSUMMER HAZE: POETRY BY CALLIE MCCANN-EROS

Midsummer Haze

I drive alone down the hills of the city,

upscale neighborhoods turned deserted,

dangerous-looking slums.

A ghost town.

The memory lingered,

a faint glitter in the sea-tumbled glass reflection of time.

Undying was the summer season –

crunchy candy,

Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream;

ice cream spilling everywhere.

That summer in August…

moving you out of your apartment,

and into our apartment.

Surrounding the illusion of

a comfortable happiness we created –

smiling in our private fairyland.

It all shouldn’t have been so fleeting…

Fuck, I wish marriage was easy.

Her refusal was unmistakable:

she shook her head viciously,

doubt in her eyes and scars on her face.

no

I nodded, but I was broken to nothing.

Sobbing –

my Summer Queen has disappeared.

Found poem using text from McGuire, Seanan. The Winter Long. New York: DAW Books, 2014. Print. Pg. 94-106.

Callie McCann-Eros is a proud queer woman, millennial, wife, and foster mom. She works a normal 8-5 desk job in a small state on the East Coast, but spends her leisure time consuming media and writing poetry. She has a unique talent of being able to find anything that anyone is looking for (give her a call if you ever lose that one random sock), and she knows how to go hard in carpool karaoke. She cites Dorothy Parker and Seanan McGuire as her biggest inspirations. You can find her on Twitter as @OurMrsParker, or follow her poetry at beneath-the-ink.tumblr.com