P O E M I N 2

To Get There, We’d Have To
Climb Someone Else’s Fence

Ashlyn Ervin

We could lie down,
in fields you see on TV—
the ones that look covered in Easter grass.

I could bury you in plastic,
cover you up in tissue paper,
unwrap your eyes like candy bars—

Eat you up. Call you “Sweetie”
and mean it—

look away from you long enough to miss you
and wake up—
turn off the TV and bite at the chocolate edges
around your nose, your ears.

Stare at you and think about crying,
blame you for my scatter-brained, absent mind—
then feel the grass tickle my shoulder blades again.