A SUMMER DAY WITH YOU
by Katie Grierson
When the sun scares
the winter from my jeans,
we leave them
empty bodies off the edge
of my bed. You stand in the center
of my room. My sunscreen smells like
coconut. You smell like my
sunscreen. The back of your calves,
your arms, your shoulders, the small half-circle
by your collar the sun will lick. My hands.
About the author
Katie Grierson believes in aliens. She is a 2020 YoungArts Finalist in Novel-Writing, was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts Semifinalist, is an alumni of the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program, and has been recognized by the Academy of American Poets as the 2022 Jean Burden Prize winner. Besides being prose editor for Lumiere Review, she also overuses the em dash and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Body Without Organs and Dishsoap Quaterly, among others.