Poetry: Lisa Hiton

Lisa Hiton received her MFA in poetry from Boston University in 2011.  Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Cortland Review, Linebreak, Indiana Review, and Redivider among others.  She has received fellowships from the New York State Summer Writers Institute and the MU Writing Workshops in Thassos.  She is a current nominee for the Pushcart Prize.

 

TUESDAY

You wear a yellow bathing suit
          You leave the butter    melting on the stove
                                                sizzling in the kitchen.

          We are standing

somewhere between
                        door and sunlight.

                                      You take the burrs out of my skin.
                                              They’re made of ice.

You say        are you alright?      I look at your hand:
                                                               all the things that sting me
                                                                      in your palm
                                                                   then on the floor.

            The little holes in my arm   still burn.

                           Shh, shh…   you say         and touch my arm—

                      your breasts
in the bathing suit                    the butter
                                                 burning in the pan.

—
“Tuesday” first appeared in Indiana Review.