Caitlyn Curran

And oh the color

of her corset was baby pink, tied with satin
string. In the bed, pink shreds of clothing:
tiny strawberries on my black dress, fuschia
panties. Like with like. The photo booth spat
out two sets of prints, I pocketed the color
to put on my fridge. She brought home the black
and white, but forgot her hair extensions
on my dresser—a set of blonde curls, inert
and happy as a cat. So she comes back,
with a bucket of fresh-picked berries.
And oh, the color: the shy orange of boysenberry,
the raspberry’s wet depth, the speckled dark
and tart of blueberries, small firm planets against
the white of vanilla ice cream
in a large bowl, for two. She spoons color
and cream for me, brings it to my lips.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Caitlyn Curran holds an MFA from the University of Idaho and currently lives in Portland, Oregon. Her recent work can be found in: The American Journal of Poetry, Basalt, Grist, Hubbub, Miramar, PANK, Raleigh Review, SALT, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Willow Springs and elsewhere. She was a 2018 Centrum Fellow at the Port Townsend Writers Conference, recipient of a 2019 Academy of American Poets Prize and runner-up in the 2021 Grist Proforma Contest. Her full-length manuscript, With Midnight Down Your Throat, was selected as the 2022 Emma Howell Rising Poet Prize winner and is published by Willow Springs Books.