April Michelle Bratten

THICK SKIN

The tire had three nails in it.
I drove on it anyway, creeping
through stop signs, flub flub flub
of sad tire, headlights fading,
hoping for a sideways angel
to curve the pierced rubber,
to place his lips to the holes
and blow, but I was alone.

Later that night, I threw my
panties into a tree and stumbled
through a fresh snow, only to lean
sideways against a stranger's house,
and flub flub flub my husband's
best friend, his risk heavy in my ear.

I was alone, as shameless
and as dark
as his hair clutched in my hand.
I was everything wrong with nighttime.
I was the thick skin on the sky.

April Michelle Bratten currently lives and writes in Minot, North Dakota. She has been published in journals such as Southeast Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Thrush Poetry Journal. She edits Up the Staircase Quarterly, and her book of poetry, It Broke Anyway, was published by NeoPoiesis Press in 2012.