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Rachel Baker Lugo


Girl, Friend, and I

 

Fingers lined and positioned at our heads

You mapped my body with quick pinpoints

In plain sight, so slick it went through me

As I lunged into you in the school hallway

Barricading the masses during classtime rush

 

Knee deep during blessings and

forewarned benedictions of sorts

Behind our words and Witnesses

Your palms sewed crosses over mine

Our tongues were severed in two

Of Young Eves’ ungodly divide

So I kept my shoulders shrugged

Shelved into my skinny jean pockets

Too shallow to hide the telling scales

Shedding off all shouting evidence

Of your loving rings around my neck

 

I taught our calluses not to touch

When the sidewalk grew too small

I failed to tell you of how I tried

To scrape off every scent of us

Hiding yet scratching beneath

The chair scribbled floor tiles

With spare steel sponges I found

In hidden corners of the church

 

Three levels down into the basement kitchen

Where old ladies wished me the bearing luck

Of senior year marriages and social approval

Of teen pregnancies to start my prospective

Young family of far too many

 

With bleeding hands and tearing gums

I slanted a grin and let my head find buoyancy

So I could find my marred palms

and cover my eyes from the man-shaped dents

Often found on warm tables and lit up faces

behind fists and unopened pew Bibles

 

Fingers circled and knuckles curled in

Years still yet your marques remain

Meticulously onto my framed bones

Further than sight and languages away

We learned to give breath in our new way


 

Kodak File 2003, II

 

We went to bed

And in the morning

I saw your skin

For the first time

 

And in the morning

You kissed me

For the first time

Because the sun rose

 

You kissed me

My grown nails still dig

Because the sun rose

Above your knuckles

 

My grown nails still dig

I don’t remember our names

Above your knuckles

But it’s Sunday

 

I don’t remember our names

And it’s reaching record warmths

But it’s Sunday

Out there

 

But it’s Sunday

Because the sun rose

And in the morning

We went to bed


 

Rachel Baker Lugo, class of 2025, is an English major and Business & Technical Writing minor, from Park Ridge, New Jersey, and mostly Paraguayan. She’s been fond of writing for as long as she can remember and hopes that whoever is reading this will stick around for her journey!

Rachel wrote these poems in her Spring 2023 poetry course taught by Professor Fuhrman. Fuhrman selected the poems for inclusion in WHR.