by Erika Meitner

Riot of roadside dame’s rocket, lavender
& white, I am walking my way through June
alongside you, & if I keep it up, move faster

than the snapping turtle in the driveway,
& the pickups on route 30 keep swerving
to avoid me while I shoulder myself against

traffic, I might beat the heat. Damask-violet,
join me at the swimming hole in the oldest
marble quarry in the country. We can watch

boys hurl themselves from sun-warmed ledges.
The folks in cut-offs holding local beer koozies
won’t care that you’re an invasive species.

Sweet rocket, ticks be damned, let’s roll around
on the grass—I’ve pulled my socks high, tucked
my shirt in, coated my body with picaridin,

loved this life as I was able to despite perpetual
distractibility. Attention is just infinite waiting
for long webs of connection—who says we can’t

always be moving? Mother-of-the-evening,
I’ve donned my reflective vest in preparation
for a steamy dusk, a twilight of lymph. Where

are the fire-flies? It’s already late. Night-scented
gilliflower, rogue’s gilliflower, I am not a thrill-seeker;
I promise, this time I’ll be the first one to break it off.

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Erika Meitner is the author of six books of poems, including Holy Moly Carry Me (BOA Editions, 2018), winner of the National Jewish Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry; and Useful Junk (BOA Editions, 2022). Meitner is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she also directs the Creative Writing program. Her newest book, Assembled Audience, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in fall 2026.

by Erika Meitner