This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from Until the End of Time by Mia Herman (Alien Buddha Press 2023).
Adam
it’s me, texting
you on the eve
of our ex-
anniversary.
God it feels like
yesterday that
we were coming
apart at the seams
but it’s been years
and I’m still lying
here under the influence
of dead-end memories.
Tell me, do you
ever feel exposed
knowing that I know
what you look like naked
and sad? Do you ever
wish for fig leaves,
for a way to cover up
the past, a way to go
back, to get extra
time in the garden
when loving each other
was ripe with possibility?
Tell me, do you ever
feel me in your bones
removing one rib
at a time, worming
my way back in?
Or is our history
just that, a bruised
piece of fruit, too rotten
to salvage.
Mia Herman is a Jewish writer and editor living in New York. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hofstra University and her work has appeared in dozens of publications, including Barren Magazine, Bellevue Literary Review, F(r)iction, Stanchion, Third Coast, and Variant Lit, among others. UNTIL THE END OF TIME (Alien Buddha Press, 2023) is Mia’s debut poetry chapbook. 
Layla Lenhardt is the author of the full-length poetry collection Mother Tongue (Main Street Rag 2023). She is an alumna of the Firefly Farms Residency and a member of the Sundress Reader Board. She is currently working on her second full length poetry collection Little Spoon, and she is an MFA candidate at IU. 
