Pentad

My name is Dillon Haws and I am from Middleton, Idaho. I am an English major with a focus on rhetoric and composition. I chose this major because I thought it would be a good pre-law major. After graduating this May I will enter law school and hope to work in the field of health law after receiving my J.D. When I’m not studying I enjoy spending time outdoors running, hiking, fly fishing.

Pentad

I And so the leaves released us gave our week to a willow reflected above our heads this was hollow, halcyon, intersectionality as the wholly other; our bodies untethered we are made of sunken paths, of their traffic and new sound Aquinnah, where there were no lights, just pale heirlooms to eulogize the end of summer

II She pretends to be a Brooke Trout finds rest in the mane of a stone that divides here from not here counts my toes comes up for air quenches her body’s thirst for silica and selenium; calls the eddy safely sulfuric forms a fossa for her feet with her foot wrapped in consent, but waits until she’s mired to ask for help goes down for remedy if our parents had this, she says, pointing to her heart, we wouldn’t exist

III Fears the antidote is in the hops in the airstream powdered doughnut flurry; thinks Christmas, thinks lights: blue changes mind reneaux: red as in ruby, mom’s car, sangria, first period on the beach green shamrock or parakeet, sea foam sneaks in settles on hackneyed, Christmas green as a model yellow? only when the sun is shining, only dad’s Mag light, only if one is lost margarine filling the windows of the trailer at night

IV Calls pine cones birds that couldn’t fly, finds her reflection in scales asks what would happen if birds were called melons, like dad loved her not in the form of melons, but the spirit of summer

V Shellacked

VI Found the sleeping bag a womb of practicum: instruction in 21 probable human facial expressions hands me an invisible Polaroid camera, says shoot me “give me shame;” hides her breasts I kiss my teeth for effect, buzz a picture for effect she snatches it from hands cupping certainty whips it through the air for effect ponders doubles, amalgamation; asks what if it’s like alloy? Shows me happily disgusted then sadly disgusted tries to solve 21 times 21, puts the equation in a pained jar sets it on the moon for someday

VII

Reaches for the night with a needle and makes stars asks how far the sky is from perjury the sutra she begged for came in suspended breath