"Private Whited" by Renee Agatep

Peering through a screen door bleeding
rust, a Rorschach of linoleum peeling beneath your feet.
Can’t you let me in? These dilapidated wooden boards
hanging like that old trampoline, 

 remember?
Where we rustled in damp
sleeping bags under dappled blue-black
skies seventeen, laughing
lips slicked in burgundy,
camouflaged in our likeness, nearly identical
sisters. Before deserts,
you and I slept beneath stars, and though
we’d never seen sand, we dreamed of a beach,
fleeing the smothering, thick smell
of marigolds and shallow creeks,
escaping that prison
of soybeans. Cornfields
standing guard, watching over us
as the dew settled in
our hair like halos,
when crickets sang louder than bombs.

---

Renee Agatep writes of her rust belt beginnings and now lives in Florida. Renee earned her master's at Northeastern University and is currently studying creative writing at the University of Central Florida. She is a 2020 Best of the Net nominee. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Rust+Moth, Dear Damsels, Dunes Review, Versification, and the Texas Poetry Calendar. You can find her on Twitter as @GoingByRenee,