Pursuit

Poetry / By Anne Dyer Stuart / October 6, 2021 / 1 minute of reading

Red Clover by Tero Karppinen — Photo by Tero Karppinen via Flickr Creative Commons

At six she knocked a boy’s head

into a pole when he put clovers

down her shirt. She knew how to protect

herself back then. She would not protect

herself again.

The walk was kitchen-ridiculous, whiskey

and schnapps, both peppermint and peach, that stink

inside her when he crammed his way in. Faster

than it takes childhood to escape, she saw

herself above her body and its braces,

her body and its futile shape. What is

not is just as important as what is.

What could she tell herself but run? She ran

for years. She ran for years.

About The Author

Anne Dyer Stuart

Anne Dyer Stuart has published widely in literary journals, including AGNI, The American Journal of Poetry, Raleigh Review, Third Coast, Cherry Tree, Sugar House Review, The Texas Review, Louisiana Literature, New World Writing, and The Louisville Review. Her work won a Henfield Prize, New South Journal's Prose Contest, was anthologized in Best of the Web, and nominated for Best New Poets. Her poetry chapbook, What Girls Learn, a finalist for Comstock Review's 2020 Chapbook Contest, will be published by Finishing Line Press in December 2021. She is Creative Works Editor of IMPOST: A Journal of Creative and Critical Work and an associate professor of English at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.