“Summer Water” is one of two witty & intoxicating poems by Sarah Bridgins in our Summer 2017 issue.

{ X }

I’M NOT AN ALCOHOLIC,
but I lie to my psychiatrist
when he asks
how much I drink.

I come from a long line of women
who luxuriate in pain
adorn themselves in velvet trauma,
spend their days
in coffin-dark rooms
using wine and longing
to summon dead loved ones.

All I want to do
is play chess
with a set made from dead mice,
read books about women
who were murdered
by strangers,
take boiling hot baths
in dirty tubs.

In a crowded bar,
I spill whiskey on my leg
and rub it in.

{ X }

SARAH BRIDGINS‘ work has appeared in Tin House, Buzzfeed, The Fanzine, Luna Luna, Bustle, Sink Review, and Big Lucksamong other journals. She is the cofounder of the Ditmas Lit reading series in Brooklyn. You can read more of her work at www.sarahbridgins.com.