darling they are coming for me you took
a sip of death from my lips
when we first kissed and i tasted the clean
unwritten paper of yours
lips that do not have centuries inscribed
in their creases from right to left
lips that do not press together and lock
like the lid of a steamer trunk
when we flee again always running with
the weight of candlesticks and shawls
dangling from a thick strap
that carves a highway
between the twin mountain ranges of our ribs
the satchel at the end
of that strap tangles my legs it slows me down
and i was never fast i hear
my pursuers loping up behind while their teeth
and their weapons click shortly
they will overtake me
while you
Doritt Carroll is a native of Washington, DC. She received her undergraduate and law degrees from Georgetown University. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Main Street Rag, North American Review, Coal City Review, and Eunoia Review, among others. Her collection GLTTL STP was published by Brickhouse Books in 2013. Her chapbook Sorry You Are Not An Instant Winner was published in 2017 by Kattywompus. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
Guest Editor Lori Baker Martin is assistant professor of English at Pittsburg State University. She’s had both poetry and fiction published in magazines like Prick of the Spindle, The MacGuffin, (parenthetical), The Little Balkans Review, Room Magazine, Grass Limb, The Knicknackery, and The Maine Review. Martin has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa, Independence Community College, and Pittsburg State University. She has worked as a reader for both The Iowa Review and NPR. Martin has been awarded for her work in The Cincinnati Review and Kansas Voices. She is a graduate of Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Martin is poetry editor for The Midwest Quarterly and is currently finishing a novel set in pre-Civil War Missouri.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 