by Lindsay Neves

Perhaps her name is Loretta.
The red-head in the candy apple dress,
cursed to stare at that book of matches,
teetering on a tightrope of fire.

on a canvas left untouched, leaning
in Edward Hopper’s studio, she runs
through cornfields, silver threads
of her mother’s crown, prisms for a painted sunset.

Choice, the seam sewn up the back of her dress,
she crawls out of at night’s end,
a swan with tangled feathers in a post-
industrial landscape, ensnared by the fibers

of her dancing dreams. It was a cold Iowa
Tuesday when she split in two, when one
girl went back to the farm, washed laundry,
made biscuits on the old iron stove,

and another followed train wheels to a place
where everything glowed, steel gaze, glittering eyes,
the city beat in her bones, click-clack of shoes
like them Rockettes in black and white.

Tonight, she waits. Glasses clink,
a spoon rests on a saucer, heat breathes
from the man’s fingertips near hers,
as smoke rises from his Lucky Strike.

Together, they are the night, an intoxicated shadow,
drunk with mystery, sultriness, half in,
half out of this world, the moon, ripe, full
makes everything worth dying for.

She stares and waits, nails tapping,
to decide on one match, tucked in a solitary
street corner, a tiny blaze, flickering
before her, she could ruin this painting,

set the world on fire, peel back the corners,
snuff out the fluorescent tube light,
melt the vinyl stools, watch it eat everything,
lapping, licking, roaring for more.

LINDSEY NEVES graduated from URI in 2008 with a B.A. in English and Secondary Education where she co-edited and wrote for The Independent Scribe. She currently lives and works in North Attleborough, Massachusetts as a sixth grade English teacher. Her poem featured in this issue was written in response to her own class assignment. Her work will also be featured in the upcoming winter issue of the Boston Literary Magazine.