Bright Division is the pen name of Sophie Klahr and Corey Zeller, who, having met once, have been writing together simultaneously for three years via Google Docs. Corey Zeller is the author of You and Other Pieces (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2015) and Man vs. Sky (YesYes Books, 2015). Sophie Klahr is the author of Meet Me Here at Dawn (YesYes Books, 2016) and the chapbook _____ Versus Recovery (Pilot Books, 2007). Corey lives in Erie, PA, and Sophie lives in Los Angeles, CA. Someday they will surely meet again.
***
Trigger
We are an easy way. Knit, common,
regular as any ditch. And that old woman
combing the dirt out with her hands—
She had something to say about what
we were becoming. Hydrangeas, pink tissues,
wind in the kitchen curtains. The rug worn
at the foot of the screen door, where one
waits for one to come home. A life
worn where it matters most. Didn’t you
say Put your fingers here? And didn’t you tell
me to stay still while you stitched it up?
Didn’t we live like that awhile, like fevers,
like the sounds our bodies made when
they forgot what a body was. Smooth as the
cloth you wrapped our gun in and just as blue.
Once
The bullet-shaped fan rattles a metallic And.
A numb fullness.
Clothespins on the empty line in the wind
and the clothes not there made more
full by their absence.
I am allowed to strike my lover—This once, he said.
There is no fixed edge. A wolf on the roof
and the edge of the roof. The falcon hood
burning in its dark mantle, and you, thirsty,
tucked between my teeth and cheek.
What I want has to do with what sickness does
to color; you talk and the trees turn blue.
You talk and I think of the green room where I broke you.
