Claire McGuire

POLLYANNA SMILES

Her prairie hair is grass gone to seed,
her voice vibrates on a fiddle string.

She taught you the meaning of homeward,
Americana Pollyanna, you tangle her name
in the cold northeastern stars.

She spills tall tales across the porch,
the air smells of thunder and cherry pie.
As a child she caught fireflies in jars
and has a scar in the shape of Alabama,
Pollyanna.

Tonight,

snow clouds roll through Chicago, the air is thin.
You stand in the window on a two hour layover
and look Homeward.

Pollyanna Mystica, a sky full of constellations
that you have already begun to forget:
watermelon seeds spit from the porch,
a spattering of insects on the windshield,
beautifully and infinitely random.

Freckles that trail down her knees and bare feet,
meandering paths you have followed before.
Pollyanna Diana, an fat moon smiles down on
the Kentucky dirt, rutted and red
where she will lay down her tired bones.

Claire McGuire is a 22-year-old who studies art history and writes in her spare time. In her work, McGuire tries to create a juxtaposition of words that reach into a person and stirs them up inside. She finds inspiration in many different places, but is always deeply affected by the natural landscape where she happens to be living.