Stingray
Show me who you are, not
who you think I want you to be,
she says, and I untie my bathrobe.
That’s not what I meant,
she laughs, traces her pinky
down my surgical scar,
circles the birthmark
on my left knee. I tongue away
the stingray
inked to her clavicle. To die
is different
from what anyone supposed,
luckier, she reads
from the tattoo
on my right thigh.
Enough words for tonight.
…..
This poem is from the book The Flightless Years by Jamie L. Smith (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-flightless-years-by-jamie-l-smith/
The #poems and #essay fragments in The Flightless Years investigate the relationship between #memory, #myth, and meaning. When our heroes fail us, and we can’t reconcile our love for someone with their actions, do myths and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves help or harm? Over the course of The Flightless Years, a beloved friend commits a violent crime, a mother’s mental illness destabilizes the speaker’s childhood, and the speaker’s own addiction wreaks havoc on her relationships. Still, Icarus flew before he fell, and Persephone returned from the underworld. The figures present in these pages, however flawed, find their thrills, and revel in beauties ranging from the crushed glass that glitters like stars on the sidewalk to the greater cosmos and constellations.
Jamie L. Smith holds an MFA from Hunter College (2020) and is a PhD candidate in English Literature & Creative Writing at University of Utah (2024). Her poems, nonfiction, and hybrid works appear in publications including Bellevue Literary Review, Red Noise Collective, Southern Humanities Review, Tusculum Review, The Write Launch, Red Wheelbarrow, and elsewhere. She lives and writes between Salt Lake and New York City.
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