She found me collecting eggs in the coop— looked at me with crave, with wolf, with glowy-eyedness. She wrenched me, lulled me into the wild lakes. We swam breathless as knotted hydrilla curved around our ankles. She, my metonym for absolution, she, my christening, she, my Americana. Her fingers found the line of my back, my thighs full of flame— landbound, my girlhood settled in the field. Our sweat cleansed a strawbale, our jaws jittered under the lightweight warmth of an apron. She licked the salt from my neck. I brushed dirt from her temple. And we were full of exchange. Me, at first light: a white poppy crooning with luster. Then she held me behind the barn. Come tomorrow: my father, full of pioneer spirit, will have our portrait painted and inadvertently make a wife of me without knowing the secrets in my dress.
Chloe Cook holds a BA in English from Northern Kentucky University. Her work is featured or forthcoming in The Journal, Arkansas Review, Bayou Magazine, Delta Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Florida, where she’s an editorial assistant for Subtropics.