Kolleen Carney Hoepfner | Convenience Store Cigar, Four Times

Kolleen Carney Hoepfner's poetry and other writings can be found in Five 2 One Magazine, Watershed Review, Golden Walkman, Uno Kudo, Bad Pony, Rabid Oak, Birth.Movies.Death, and elsewhere. Kolleen serves as Editor in Chief of Drunk Monkeys, and is the Managing Editor and Social Media Coordinator for Zoetic Press. She lives in Burbank, California, with her husband and son.

Kolleen Carney Hoepfner's website.

Drunk Monkeys

Zoetic Press

Also by Kolleen Carney Hoepfner: Your Hand Has Fixed the Firmament Sacrificing Ideas of Pacifism A Correspondence Between Laura and Dale, 1989 Reflecting the Surface of You: A Relationship set to "Finally, Peace"

May 2018

Kolleen Carney Hoepfner

Convenience Store Cigar, Four Times

And did it hurt, then? And what were you thinking when cherry tip met blackened flesh — And could you taste it like brisket, the kind you smoke all day so it melts in your mouth? And if my tongue inspects the edges will I taste regret? And did you think of what you were erasing? Small perfect circle teeth drunk fumbling lacking rhythm and the morning, that dawning mistake — did you think you didn't know you'd be here now with me? What did you see? Teeth grit and nerves numb and where was I and what was I thinking, at that moment without you? The expanse of your back, at the sink backlit by the desert sky. My back arching to kiss my hips with your hips. Your back at the sink. My weeping face in a diner window Your back at the sink. My trust turned to ashes. Your back at the sink. The lie, and how you told it.

This poem was a difficult one for me; I can't even really look at it without getting emotional. I guess I am sort of chronicling my relationship through my poetry lately, and not everything is always going to be magical. There is a certain amount solipsism that comes with this relationship, as much as I hate to admit it (and I am working on it!). I'm in my head too much, I obsess. What do you do when the person you love most shatters you? I write poems about it. How do you reconcile forgiveness when there is a physical reminder of that lie? It's too difficult. What did he do when he saw how shattered I was? He erased it, by any means necessary. (Additionally, this poem borrows from Father John Misty and Yo La Tengo, and I would be remiss to not mention it.)

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