Mackenzie Carignan
only road-dust to float you now.
without a body. through the
swinging eye. roof into dust.
window into pile wind exile. you
would have gone. but not as soon.
you say as a stone in my dream.
every morning. woke. photograph.
three kneeling women. scabbed
knees. the smallest, lightest tree. no
more wall. but the window. water I
cannot move through. oranges.
candles. a driveway, a moat. my
watery, glittering eyes. horn. wave.
always to goodbye. the last picture
ever taken of you. weight on me.
gravel loose under toes. you are
small like a child. like a drowning
child. in a river. in an eddy. caught
in swirl.
Mackenzie Carignan is a PhD student at University of Illinois at Chicago where she teaches creative writing and literature classes. Her poetry has been published in Hayden's Ferry Review, The Chaffin Journal, Liberty Hill Poetry Review, Into the Teeth of the Wind, Bluesky Review, Sniper Logic, Square One, and has upcoming publications in Alligator Juniper, Another Chicago Magazine, and RIEN's Evening of Odds. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2005 and lives two blocks from Wrigley Field with her husband, Brian and son, Eliot.