The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: baby, sweetheart, honey by Emily Perkovich

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from baby, sweetheart, honey by Emily Perkovich (Alien Buddha Press 2023).

I Write Myself Into Your Shoes
And Change The Setting

I come to in the thick of it
Find you face down in flooded fields
I imagine you as me

we’re face to face mixing breath, we’re skin to skin mixing signals, I brush 
fingers on hips, watch the way your words come out whispered in the negative, 
know this is the moment when things snap, you’re on the ground as I push my 
heel into neck, limbs scrambling as I roll you stomach-bound, press my palm 
to back of head, you’re screaming, and I’m watching the mud fill the gaps in 
your teeth, watching browned grass catch in your throat, I laugh, call you 
water-logged, dig a trench across you, spike your spine, till the surface

I come to in the thick of it
Open the window on the scene
Flash freeze the field
You bleed dirt from all your holes
Scream again for an ending

Emily Perkovich is from the Chicago-land area. She is the Editor in Chief of Querencia Press and on the Women in Leadership Advisory Board with Valparaiso University. Her work strives to erase the stigma surrounding trauma victims and their responses. She is a Best of the Net nominee and a SAFTA scholarship recipient. She is previously published with Harness Magazine, Rogue Agent, Coffin Bell Journal, and Awakenings, among others. She is the author of the poetry collections Godshots Wanted: Apply Within (Sunday Mornings at the River), The Number 12 Looks Just Like You (Finishing Line Press), & baby, sweetheart, honey (Alien Buddha Press) as well as the novella Swallow. You can find more of her work on IG

Layla Lenhardt (she/they) is an American poet. She is founder and Editor-in-Chief of the (currently on hiatus) national literary journal 1932 Quarterly. Her essays, poems, short prose, and interviews have been published across various types of media, including a pickle jar, a post card, and a bathroom stall in Dublin. She is a 2021 Best of the Net Nominee and was a judge for Poetry Super Highway’s Annual Contest in 2022. Her first full-length poetry collection, Mother Tongue, was published by Main Street Rag Publications (2023). She is a 2022 alumna of the SAFTA residency.