I think you’ve been going
out. I think you’ve hit
four-way stopsigns, a few
rocks, my ankle. I think
it’s been night and mountain
silent, stars like sneezing, and
you haven’t considered the dimensions
of this valley. I think
you’ve been going out further
than you intended, that you’ve
stopped measuring and started beaming
through leaf collages and grapevines.
I think you’re lost. I
think that isn’t a problem.
I think you glow in
the dark, that if I
kissed you again I’d gulp
luminescence, and every night that
followed anyone would be able
to see my throat. I
think you found a trail
between mountains, ended up facing
north. I think you’ve been
going out miles from where
you thought you were going,
that there’s this whole other
part of the forest and
you’ve walked inside it and
haven’t managed to say a
word, not even my name.

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Gemma Cooper-Novack is a writer, educator, and writing coach who lived in New York, Chicago, and Ghana before moving to Boston. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in more than a dozen journals, including Ballard Street Poetry Journal(Pushcart Prize nomination), Cider Press Review, Hanging Loose, Santa Fe Writers’ Project, and Printer’s Devil Review. Gemma’s plays have been produced in Chicago and New York. She has been awarded artists’ residencies in Catalonia, Miami Beach, and New York, and enjoys baking cookies and walking on stilts.