Lake Erie

Written by Maren Antinia Krizner

21 years old

Lemont Furnace, PA

Big lights overhead, hot tar beneath my feet

burn, please burn me, so I might feel the rash

cold breeze of a moment without wondering

if my happiness is palatable, packaged under

a new name. Americanized.

I took the messages you left

and put them with the others.

You are my first aid kit,

I am your tourniquet.

If I’m unhappy, I’m certainly not going to say so.

On our last trip to Erie,

you got quiet, and then you asked me

to put the camera down for once.

There is a world where I told you I never learned how to skip stones,

and so you sat down with your shoulder pressed against mine

and spent nearly half an hour teaching me.

Burn me, please burn me.