Sarah Jordan Stout
Terra's Lament Upon Leaving New Orleans
I know love makes you do cuckoo things,
my friend once climbed a cell phone tower for it.
And I wanted the electric feeling too,
a current to drink from like juice,
to clutch and bear, to wrestle with, as if a dragon.
Does that make me rotten? Sometimes I think yes,
most times I can’t think. But now that I can
I will let the dragon go, when it least counts,
and I’ll be an old, humbled woman
who frees with knotted fingers
fish caught in plastic six-pack rings, or mends
with soft gauze the chipmunk with the broken paw—
I only ever wanted to do good.
Sarah Jordan Stout is a college student from Knoxville, Tennessee who likes to paint her nails, write plays, and look forlorn in public places.