Jillian B. Briglia

The Fall of 1987
Ann Arbor, MI

An empire of aphids,
Dead yellow, and blight:
That was the season
Of smoke, lab rats, and swollen
Leaf piles, of the girl limp in the liver-colored river,

Her wet pearlish socks;
Of shame; of Seventeen, and
Plaid fads, drug gigs,
And lonely heart calls. Stomach acid nights
Rinsed against teeth like mouthwash.
The Huron ran sick with desire,
For Ypsilanti boys, ice blue pitchers,
Hot fudge, the flowered cross on
Shaky Jake’s guitar case.

One afternoon I saw
What a man did to a woman.
I re-did my face under the bleachers,
Peach Schnapps in throat;
I like how it burned,

And how when I stopped talking,
I disappeared.

Jillian B. Briglia is a writer from Portland, OR living in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in the Blue Monday Review, Driftwood Press, Mangoprism, Eunoia Review, and elsewhere.