Leaving the Oven On by Hannah Baggott


 
I.
 
For those of you I’ve forgotten, I haven’t and it’s getting easier like trusting 
a washing machine to get blood out of a bathing suit.
 
 
!!.
 
Weighing just beneath the soft purple patches of skin—rough dreams;  
I roll over to face the flat-backed body next to me, mumbling fear. 
He sleep talks to me:
 
Quiet… the day starts with words—not yet.

 
 
III.
 
But I’m awake, and everything is a little harder not to do—
folding apples in flour and I’m stuck watching for until golden brown.
 
 
IV.
 
With tobacco on my breath, I don’t listen an almost man talk about his joy 
in birds and my pupils do not widen. Instead, I’m staring at the way his hip 
bones meet the elastic band of his boxers.
 
 
V.
 
Moss does not only note north; anywhere wet will do.

 
 
 
Nashville native Hannah Baggott is a poet of the body and a lover of Sappho, tattoos, and coffee. She is pursuing an MFA in poetry at Oregon State University while teaching freshman writing. She has received awards for flash fiction and critical writing in gender studies. Her work can be found in The Vagina Zine.