Author’s note: “Each day, a young woman runs past my home. What drives her pace, pushes her on? She runs fifteen miles a day alone, on country roads. I tried stepping into her shoes, tried to understand, imagined a past that could not be faced, a hurt that could not be undone. The repeated pounding of soles on pavement became a meditation, a saving grace.”
Compulsion
She grinds her teeth,
slides Nikes onto white feet,
jogs from house to drive,
onto the gray asphalt,
arms pumping.
Outside there is only
pulse and breath, knees
and thighs. Each stride
past Overlook Pond
pulls her beyond
her mother’s eyes.
Crows jeer from pines
clouds crowd sky.
The past is an abscess
under her tongue
she finds each time
she runs. What she carries
devours her balance,
drives her body.
She wants to sleek
her body down,
become a machine,
each step a calibration,
face, stone, body hard,
sexless, skin and bone.
What she runs toward
is unknown; what
she carries, a parasite
burrowing into her bones,
she bears alone.
⧫
Susan Roney-O’Brien’s poetry has been nominated for seven Pushcart Prizes. She has published Farmwife, winner of the William and Kingman Page Poetry Book Award, Earth (Cat Rock Press), Legacy of the Last World (WordTech), Bone Circle, and Thira (both by Kelsay Books). She is the Summer Writing Series Coordinator for the Stanley Kunitz Boyhood Home and lives in Princeton, Massachusetts.
Delmarva Review publishes compelling new poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction selected from thousands of submissions annually. The independent review is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit literary publication supported by individual contributions and a grant from the Talbot County Arts Council with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council.
The 14th annual review is forthcoming in November. Editions are available from Amazon.com, major online booksellers, and from regional specialty bookstores. Website: DelmarvaReview.org.
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