Kelsey Carmody Wort

Our Three-Quarters Phase

Our autumn Sundays were extra everything.
Hair twists knotted with ballpoint pens, squash
soup thickened with cream and more spoons
than we needed just in case. We visited the piano

more that year than we ever had, still too stubborn
for lessons... but just think how much easier reading
music might be the next time we go through our phase.
If it were warm enough to be barefoot, I would

have been. Northern Wisconsin turns frigid too fast. Finn
told me his thumbs were too big to keep finding
the splinters in the soles of my feet from the unfinished
wood floor. The batter was always in the fridge

waiting for a griddle or a muffin tin. The morning
I told him about the dreams I’d been having—prying
crab claws off my toenails, how I kept swallowing them—
was bundled sweaters deep, knees tucked on the back porch.

He’d never said less. When the rain came sideways,
he reached for his ball cap instead of going inside.
The yard had no flowers—only overgrown grass tickling
the backs of our calves, trees that kept the sun from us.

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Kelsey Carmody Wort is an MFA candidate in poetry at Purdue University. She loves her home state of Wisconsin, pop music, postcards with painted flowers and dancing around her kitchen.