Emily Wick lives and writes in Minnesota. She has had work published in Greatest Lakes Review and The Coeval.

Two Poems (February 20, 2011. Issue 25.)

Coconut Milk

To crack the shell we take turns banging
the heavy orb against the rock,
over and over.
He brings it down hard
enough that it splits,
the coconut a shining globe
in his wide hands.
The milk seeps out
he puts his lips to the crack
and sucks deep. His teeth,
white and glistening.
Smiling, swiping his arm across
his mouth he hands it to me
and I copy his motions,
pressing my lips there
at the opening.
At first I think it might be water
but wait: there is honey in it too.
It flows too quickly,
spilling over my chin,
down my neck
and between my breasts.
I pass it back to him.
When we have sucked the husk dry
we lay on the sand
and let the sun warm us,
drying the sweet milk on our skin
so that his sparkles
and mine glows.

Going North With a Lover

I.
She wakes early to escape
the room they’d slept in,
only to find herself face down at sunrise
on the surface of the earth,
trying to gather its strength
through her thin skin. Again.
The forest fire a few years ago
created this wreckage
and she scrapes black ash onto her arms
with a burnt stick.
She curls there until the sun
glows higher, whiter,
then starts to spread out—
first the clenched fists,
then arms and back and finally
legs spread wide.

II.
Facing the wind and the sun
by the small river,
there she is with that man
by her side, heavy and unthinking.
He does not ask why
she is crying.
I paid two hundred for these,
he says, placing his sunglasses
over her eyes.
She gathers pine needles
in her fists and holds onto them
as if they can keep her
from feeling this kind
of sadness.
And now she knows the question
she should have always asked:
Does he notice beauty?
And if the answer is no,
then the answer is no.

III.
The woman in the mirror
is smiling
because by driving north
she rediscovered something
in her hipbones
that she lost in the dullness
of the city.
That is, she rediscovered hope.

IV.
Perhaps better not to write about
the dryness of the kiss,
the lack of lust, or even
kindness. Perhaps better not to mention
how his hands lay above his head,
unmoving. Perhaps better
not to say how she moved back
to her own bed after he fell
asleep, to be free of the atmosphere
of his arms. Perhaps no need to tell
of how she lay there and wondered
at the possibility of feeling so heavy
and so light at the same time.

V.
Driving south today, back to
the city, back home.
She is glad he sleeps like that:
if he were as wakeful as she,
escape would be more complicated.
She spreads out on her belly
to smell the water hidden
in the rock.
The white cold light of morning
to be carried in her stomach
like a hunger,
the water in the rock
to be carried in her throat
like thirst.
If she can carry these necessary
things in her bones,
she can go anywhere, alone,
without any burdens
on her back.