Birthday Candles

Only five planted in the buttercream frosting,
every wick kissed with light;
a girl leans forward, eyes closed, thinking
of the swish of a pony’s tail.

Such flimsy things. Who knew that markers of time
could arrive in pastel colors?
Each candle representing a year of her scraped knees,
then love letters and babies’ cries;

each one assembled in a line like seeds in garden
or clustered into flaming flowers,
the wax dripping down the base like drops of dew,
congealing into opaque pearls.

Only five, but the ghosts of the others dancing
in that hush before the wish;
a woman bends down, eyes closed, thinking
of leaves curling into themselves

and the warbled notes of the nightingale perched
in the tree outside her window.
The smoke drifts heavenward, a wraithlike finger
stroking her under the chin.


Fall

We’re finally here, Aiden and I,
sitting at the base of his favorite
tree in the park, whose reds,
oranges, and yellows weave
themselves into a blanket overhead
like the one he forgot to bring.

I wonder how many girls he has
taken here; did he bring her here?
He drapes an arm around me—
me, shivering in my too-thin shirt.
In the pond there is a duck,
bottoms up, webbed feet waving.

I ask Aiden where it will go
in a few months when the water
freezes over, but his fingers
are too busy fishing for the hem
of my shirt. A knowing wind
shakes some of the leaves loose,

which settle into my hair, as he
pecks at my neck. I glance up
at the rest that hang heavy
on the branches, on the cusp
of gravity, while the frosted ground
beckons, come into my fold.


The Woods of the Misses Lonelyhearts
* Best of the Issue - January 2010 winner! *


They all come here when love has reached its end—
or when girls think it has. It’s here they give
themselves to one another as a friend.

Meet Beth: a quiet girl who likes to spend
her mornings writing all about a love
that lost its feathers—just wings, in the end.

Or Grace, explaining how one must transcend
betrayal: pour his promise through a sieve
to catch the lies that glitter gold. Her friend

Amanda, speaking colors, will contend
that kisses can be black, that to forgive
is always blue, and yellow marks the end.

And Willow, who can almost comprehend
the whispers from her namesake tree: to live,
to live, regardless of regret. A friend

indeed, absorbing her remorse to send
through branches towards the center of the grove;
although her questions have not reached an end,
nor her insisting, “He was my best friend.”


Black Ice

Your words were almost as sharp
as the blades on my skates that glide
along the ice, the laces pulled tight
because if air can slip in, so can the pain
and the longing. And all the reasons

of why we can’t be together, knit
into neat rows like the stitches
of my scarf that is wrapped around
my neck a little too snugly.

Hope melts into the snow slopes
that glitter like the beads of sweat
slipping down the Coke bottles
we sipped the summer
that I’m not thinking about.

Your hair, eyes, lips seem to fade
away, but your crooked grin hovers
in the air even as my leg lifts to turn
into this jump. I do not notice the crack

in the thick layer of ice as it snakes
along the surface behind me, whisper thin,
just kissing the back of my blade.


Mary McCall is a recent graduate from Fairfield University majoring in English with a concentration in creative writing. During her time at school, she started up a literary magazine called The Cream Filling Literary Magazine of which I was co-editor. This summer, she attended a graduate poetry class at the University of Iowa taught by Jane Mead.

Her poetry has appeared in Teen Ink, Poet’s Ink, Chantarelle’s Notebook, and The Storyteller.