She Needs Out of There
Some days, the best you can do is make it to 6 a.m.
Poet Heather Loudermilk | Contemporary Southern poet | working class poetry
What Are You Eating and Who Are You With?
The fork’s hips curve, matching my own,
swooping into their points: the tines
that scrape against the pan. I used to cook
chicken when my momma was at work,
terrified I’d kill my brother, my daddy, myself.
I used the fork to secure it then took a knife
to it, right on the nonstick, opening up the slick
pink flesh. Not done. Daddy ate it whether he
liked it or not, after I burnt it, after I was sure
no salmonella waited for him. He should
have thanked me. He’s like a fork. He
doesn’t look like he could hurt but he’s sharp—
watch him prime his arm and dig in. No one
comes to my dinner parties except him and God
and God wants to still me, spears me all on his own
but He never brings the knife. I’m on the menu
and when He appears the rest of the pantheon
is empty. Where is my Father now? Has He decided
takeout has more merit than what I can create for Him?
He won’t do dishes but He will make them.
Poet Heather Loudermilk | Contemporary Southern poet | working class poetry
Sandy Takes an Early Shift
This morning she smokes and takes it in.
August sun will have the trash well marinated
by noon. She’s not allowed to smoke
up front or she would. She’s there so early
no one can tell her off if she did
stand right in front of the Please
Enter sign but out of respect
for her Family Dollar chain
she sticks to the dumpsters. She’s
early to stock shelves, knowing
the less she’s at home, the less her
sister’s boyfriend has time
to peek at her in the shower.
Sister doesn’t listen to her and thinks
he’s harmless but Sandy can’t drink
her morning coffee
without him saying something about
her mouth. She needs out of there. It’s
why she’s grabbing shifts in these
hallowed halls, finally taking her
time in the deodorant aisle, carefully
stacking brand against brand like
tiny soldiers. Her pits sweat
and she realizes she forgot her
own antiperspirant, afraid to go into
the bathroom again and get cornered.
The employee bathroom is the only
bathroom where she feels safe enough
to look into the mirror and
know there’s nothing behind her.
It’s worth being there at 5:30am to
piss in peace, no breathing of a man
behind the door, just the buzz
of those fluorescent lights. She feels
safer here even if they get
robbed at gunpoint.
She makes it to 6am. She keeps stocking.
Poet Heather Loudermilk | Contemporary Southern poet | working class poetry
Open Sign Flashing Red
Candy bar girl comes in every day at 9:13am
trailing vanilla perfume like an ice cream
bar, sweet as candy, and gets her own sweets:
a double Milky Way meant to share
and a chocolate milk. And I tell you, I have
no idea if she shares it or not but something
in the way she walks down that aisle tells me
she doesn’t. She has a purpose, a craving
to kill. Every day she comes, more regular
than the man who buys $100 worth of scratchers
each Friday, dressed in his work boots. He
leaves the keys dangling in his big
truck and talks about someone drunk stealing
it but it’s always there at the end of
his transaction. He’s all talk. She’s all mouth,
pouty when I check her out. No ring, no jewelry
no nothing but that scent she carries and
an addiction she lets me see. She waves when
she walks out the door, back to her beat up
Honda, her front seat, and I have to fight the urge
not to stare out the window and watch her take
her first bite.
Read a 2024 Poem From Heather Loudermilk: “The Eden Drive-In”
Heather Loudermilk has poems inArtemis Journal,Still: The Journal,and elsewhere. Originally from Bassett, Virginia, she now lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her spouse and their three cats. She is currently enrolled in the MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College.
