each wave feels like a lullaby.
when it gets dark, the trees
flutter an october song, meant
to haunt the little trailers huddled
on the beach. the one at the end
of the dirt road has wood panels
and me inside. when i peer
out and see the marlboro’s ember,
i follow. there’s an oak
on the property, just one, and they
(your friends, all in a row, lit cigarettes
and quiet voices, whites of their
eyes glowing) ask me to
climb (they smirk when i do,
watch my bare spindle legs scrape
bark and dirt). i become an owl
at the top, big owl-eyes looking
down at my prey, ready
to swoop. the trees’ voices close
in, darker, more
requiem. the men call
me down, spent cigarettes tossed,
game over. but i stay,
stop and listen. i see
the moonlit sand, the sparkle-
water caught in starlight. i leave
tomorrow, but i wish i could stay
here, where you can always find me.
phone sex lullabies
they’re all different.
a certain style, a preferred
moan. one asked me to be
a little girl. i giggled and obliged,
but imagined him imagining
curls and bows, hairless
flesh. another
made words turn
to violence. i feared
meeting him in the street,
knew i wouldn’t have made it
to my car. and yet, fingers
flicking, i still pretended to
bleed, breath hitched, helped him
imagine neck blued and eyes
popped. with him,
i always screamed. but more
often than not, it’d be
little whispers, and sucking
sounds, and them, gasping,
god, baby, you’re fucking
mine.
Charlotte Covey lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where she earned her MFA in Poetry from the University of Missouri. She has poetry published or forthcoming in journals such as The CALYX Journal, The Normal School, and Salamander Review.