by Dara-Lyn Shrager

We FaceTime just before sunset.
After, you’ll thread the hills, look
down over the basin and catch what
you will of yips and howls. With
the hazards, maybe you won’t crash
the Jeep. It’s something we share,
a thoroughly modern way to be mother
and son. The dead hour at In-N-Out
Burger then home to your half of a rented
bed. You can’t remember what I did,
climbed into the star-strung crib with you
and napped a little, on a late afternoon
in the weak winter light, together, just
like this, you craning toward some invisible
edge and me, still bleeding blades some
three months later. Hush, now, never.

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Dara-Lyn Shrager lives in Princeton, New Jersey, and is the co-founder and editor of Radar Poetry. Her full-length collection, Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee, was published by Barrow Street Books in 2018. She holds an MFA from Bennington College and a BA from Smith College. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in many journals, including Crab Creek Review, Southern Humanities Review, Barn Owl Review, and Nashville Review. Her articles have appeared in newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Philadelphia Magazine. Learn more at: www.daralynshrager.com.