I Would Call You Girl
I came here by the Flixbus that reeks of exhaust
in seat 12B diagonal
from the bifold toilet door.
Wet haired college boy
mumbling French in pricey sweats
across the aisle, he held a white-and-silver disc,
flat, with a gummy silicone cord, he pressed it
between his palms,
over and over, it looked so warm
in there. He was looking at his phone. His pants
moved a little by themselves. Now,
in the green light the rest of us are set
at this table. This table, four black legs on it, black fan
in the white ceiling above it, gold-cupped bulb
shelled in the center. We’re heaping these gleaming leftovers
& putting the oven, as usual, on
broil. Who pours for us? Lord
you must have missed me. The cooking,
& how we got through it,
earlier—
between early &
now, when Larissa
was my problem. Hair to her shoulders
Larissa,
she’s the one wearing yellow,
you’re the one
so beautiful with your shirt that hangs
drippy at your waist like that. Your back
has so many bones. I can count them. I’m speaking
as a daughter now. Behind me
a long line of women—
this was before the Flixbus—waiting
for the Fitchburg commuter rail
in the Saturday wet. Woman
cross-legged with your net
of splotched knitting, I would call you
girl but now you
move, & beads drip from the hinge of your glasses
like fat roe dyed three slippery neons
on purpose & behind you—woman
again, purple
umbrella,
you stab your phone
precisely & you have your tiara
soft of tulle
& pink of peeled-pink buds, your clean
neat hair, your even part,
your dry black hair. Where were you
before now? Everyone’s
jaws appear,
sudden, I put my hands
in my mouth. & I thought this made me
female. It’s the middle
of this month, Larissa
stood in my kitchen to one side
& spoke
& the wine-cap mushrooms bellied over
in my pot & rose
to crowd the skin of the broth,
distended, dark underfringe of their mushroom gills gaping
with liquid-split oil & oil
sheen, rosemary flecks & so many marks that blotch
a mushroom stem & look like dirt
but aren’t. Pulp,
get in here. Swivel down
the gas: they all slide under.
Emma De Lisle is an associate editor of Peripheries and co-Editor-in-Chief of Mark. Last year, she served as Poetry Chair for the 2025 Massachusetts Book Awards. She studies religion and literature at Harvard and lives with her husband in western Massachusetts.