Hannah Carpino

Buford, Wyoming

The high plains were a marvel,
all theater.

We watched one storm
eat away at whole hours and states
before it was promised open overhead.
Black lightning.

I wanted so badly to be that
dead and wind-eaten prairie,
the sea wall of dry grass and electric current.

Another planet and lifetime.
Love is not necessarily
the wrong word to use.

We had been acrobats
spinning together,
collecting red clay dust over each limb.
A touch atlas
I would run my hands over.
A habit without edges.

Hannah Carpino is a Colorado poet and short story writer with a fondness for rats. Her work has previously been published in Stoneboat Literary Journal, Hobart Pulp, Rust + Moth, and Crossroads. She was a finalist for the 2022 Sundog Poetry Book Award.