Bound- Emily Hoover

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Warmth is sitting

            under the showerhead—back numb,

eyes wet from steam,

            chest folding toward drain, toes like raisins.

Bow to he who

            does not produce cold gazes that scratch

spine; vertebrae

            instead releasing like strand of

pearls, edible

            or otherwise. Accordion

breath—expansion

            to what’s still thawing beyond my

foggy mirror,

            plastic cocoon, white nothingness.

Snowflakes kiss grass

             & pine needles outside as I rise.

Pushing face toward

            falling water, I stretch like crops

after famine.

            Cheeks rosy, straight spine, I inhale

for you. Cold is

            the place where the heart goes to die.

 

-->...Emily Hoover has been writing poetry, fiction, and nonfiction since the age of 6. She spent the majority of her undergraduate career working and publishing in journalism, but received a BA in English in 2012. Currently, she is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University (NAU), teaching English Composition, and working on her novel. In her spare time she enjoys hiking, practicing and teaching yoga, and taking pictures. Her flash fiction piece “Sugar Pills” was featured in TheNewerYork Press in February 2014 and her short story “Sobriety in the Suburbs” was published in The Flagler Review in the spring of 2011. Much of her poetry and nonfiction has appeared in Flagler College Gargoyle.