open country

Dara Goodale

I loved a man whose desire

stampeded over me like wild horses,

ruthless under a burning sky.

Between tongue & breath

there is a rift

through which you can see

the end of a world.

Just for a second, I swear,

I was beautiful. Barefoot in the field,

roaming wet & unbridled.

What if only under pressure

& heat can my body become

an unbroken thing?

I lay trampled

beneath iron hooves

while his hands resculpted

clavicles, chiseled bone

till I only knew

how to run & feed.

Must sex always leave you reshaped?

Thumbprints forgotten

like old receipts, signed & dated

where the pelvis fades into flank.

It’s so easy to let yourself be invented.

To beg for anatomic stains.

What if all we’ll ever make

is not quite love, but near enough?

He takes the early train.

I watch the horses seek shelter

from the mercurial storm.

Listen: only the wind remembers

how to spell my name.

DARA GOODALE (they/them) is a Romanian–American queer multigenre writer and university student living in Lausanne, Switzerland. Their work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, the American Poetry Journal, ANMLY and more. You can find them on Instagram @daragoodale and online at daragoodale.com.