In light of stolen lipstick and dying

by Andrea Jefferson

Nathan Powers

for Zacarah  

It wouldn’t make sense to brandish our memories  with false sap.    Truthfully, you were a wild child;  the henna dick you drew on my leg took a week    to fully fade. You used to bend me over furniture  and bump your crotch against my butt    as if you could actually penetrate. We’d laugh.  I never got back the lipsticks    you stole from my room. I never knew a lock  capable of keeping you out,    and the universe decided, less than three years  after your graduation,    it was time to suck you through the vortex  like the best part of a vanilla shake.    We all know you weren’t vanilla, though, in any way.  I don’t picture you in clouds or ashes, asleep in a casket.    I picture you fully alive in space  playing spades with the man on the moon.

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Andrea Jefferson is a creative residing in Southern Louisiana. Her chapbook Stray Curls and Dirty Laundry was released digitally in 2018.