Tarswing by Kale Hensley

What I lack in the field of dilly-dally, I make up for in weddings:

specifically that of my girl-sweaty heels to the tar cursive of the concrete,

gravel chucked as if I were just leaving a church, not a yella grub

stuffed with the holler latchkeys–and I do, I do–sang one leg after another

through the rubber portal that promised in split tongue tenderness

and recklessness; one gallant leap and I would be but the pebble seeking ol’

Goliath’s head. I was lucky. To have a mawmaw that strung things

up tight, so lucky that the pine tree–sap laden, cone-heavy–put up with me.

If asked to name one thing that belonged to me, I would make you

see the eden of my pungent seat, how some evenings, the rain gilded each

ruckus in a sheen of need: the swallowtail’s shit-eating, a trailer

bluer than creek groan, would you believe me if I said I never wanted to go

home? How I could’ve spent the cream of my hours wracking up

swears, from the boughs, the honeysuckles, to swell in the web of my stare.

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Kale Hensley is a poet and collage artist from West Virginia. Her work appears in BOOTH, Evergreen Review, and other literary venues. She lives in Texas with her wife and a menagerie of clingy pets. Find more of her work at kalehens.com and more of her life @julianofwhorwich. on Instagram.