by Molly Gustafson

After Rainer Maria Rilke

Heady nights on blacktop with
dice comin’ up snake eyes:
We came together like
wild dogs in our ripening.

Now, that playground is fruit
long-fermented. And fairy tales. And
breaking glass. And houndstooth. And yet,
this hazy fog in my periphery must be his

childhood instead. I can’t feel it in my torso
anymore. I stand at that wire screen: Is
the wind gonna blow east? Does it still
howl unanswered? I am today suffused

with that stain; with that hunger; with
that juvenility mistaken for brilliance.
They’re raised like weeds where I’m from,
and he remains; still sleeping it off inside.

Molly Gustafson is graduating in May 2025 with her BA in English-General Writing and minor in Theatre. Her work has previously appeared through Wingless Dreamer Publishing, as well as in Windows Fine Arts Magazine, where she won the Spring 2025 First-Place Prize in Poetry.