Every One of Them, Mirrors

There was the one who called me Hubcap when I asked for a nickname. The
one who got famous and still owes me eighty dollars. The one with a haircut
like Joey Ramone, who cut me loose with a note tied to the foot of a baby
rabbit. The one with a side hustle in magic, who could find the six of
diamonds in your wallet. Two years before he died—face bruised in sarcoma,
his body a muslin sheet—the one who made an exception for me. I was the
only girl he’d ever kissed, he said, and he’d do it again. You ask me why I tell
you these things. It’s not so much to sanctify them as to tame who I was when
I loved them.

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Christy Prahl is an Illinois Arts Council grant recipient and the author of the collections We Are Reckless (Cornerstone Press, 2023) and Catalog of Labors (Unsolicited Press, forthcoming 2026). A Best of the Net and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has been featured in Poetry Daily as well as many national and international journals, including CALYX (forthcoming), The Penn Review, Salt Hill Journal, and others. She splits her time between Chicago and rural Michigan.