by Allison Whittenberg
Allison Whittenberg is an award-winning poet, short story writer, playwright, and novelist and a teacher for the Indiana Writers Center. Her novels are Sweet Thang, Hollywood and Maine, Life is Fine, Tutored (Random House 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2010). Her work has appeared in Flying Island, Feminist Studies, Inconclast, and The Ekphrastic Review. She is author of the full-length short story collection, Carnival of Reality (Loyola University Press, 2022). Whittenberg is a six-time Pushcart Prize nominee.
1st
Shake me
Kiss me
Make me
Give in
Ignore my innocence
Appeal to my curiosity
Leave me to my uncertainty
In a few weeks
I’ll worry about reputation, AIDS, pregnancy
In a few years
I’ll worry about self-esteem.
Fine
I heard
a child's scream and I ignored it
because
it was a
child's scream.
lucency
amongst a breathless, debilitating,
incapacitating,
panic attack
i
told
myself
not to panic
and...
without warning
i
was
suddenly
all
right.