Midnight Oil

Late. Later than thought possible. Irresponsible
of me, again. Consequences will catch up, with arms

akimbo, in alarm. Fatigue begets espresso, espresso
begets caffeine crash, crash begets more coffee,

coffee begets feeling a lack of control which
begets Xanax which begets fatigue. My oils weren’t

made for midnight: sebaceous glands and serum
of evening primrose. Oil distilled from flesh

like the movie, Perfume. I am no murderer;
I kill only time.
Melatonin pantomime.
“Don’t wake the sleeping baby,” I text you; the baby is me.

Promissory, promissory, this distant and belated sleep.
What is “promissory”? Implying a promise, such

as an oath, a condition, a look between two people,
a feeling between my cheek and the memory foam.

Memories sewn to my side like many translucent legs,
memories on which I crawl, which must support me:

ballet leather, tempera paint, my reaching toward a newborn
sister like the Sistine Chapel. Yellow cake, blue sofa,

hot cocoa after Sunday School, mermaid wig and spiders
in the boathouse. Late March– I put out my palm

and they ask: “And did you feel anything? Was there any rain?”

The candle at both ends, enough oil to last me, past

thunder, memory, promise, past touch and catastrophe.
No guarantee of primrose, no saying where the middle is

in midnight, where it folds in half like a vertex, like a veil–
cathedral-length, pinned upon my scalp, cascading downward

into baroque pearls. Blush all over my slacks by morning: as if
plumeria on graphite. I must attempt to be civil, to be a citizen.

I listen to a playlist called “Blame Radio”. Where does that blame go?
Myself, myself, undoubtedly: there is no other.

Doppelgänger means “double-walker”

After Ross Gay

The lilac in me is breakable.
The nobody in me is unpronounced,
vacant as candled ice across Lake Eerie.
The magistrate in me is without mercy.
The minimalist in me does not exist.
The primordial pouch of a cat in me,
The cruel fighter, the athlete, the crook.
The cook and homemaker. The sacred
in me kneels on the pew’s hassock.
The major arcana in me: the Empress,
The Hierophant, the Fool. The coolest
girl in school: diamanté sunglasses, baguette
purse, bootcut jeans from Somerset.
The dappled stranger in me is deranged,
imperfect and crude as oil, spoiled as
custard spoils, dastardly. I walk in
duplicate–a carbon copy. My body
inverted, in verse, in lines that
break like cuttings of lilac in shallow
water, in shadow and its projections.

Emily Corwin's work has appeared in Salamander, Black Warrior Review, Passages North, DIAGRAM, Ninth Letter, New South, and elsewhere. Her books include Marble Orchard (University of Akron Press, 2023), Sensorium (University of Akron Press, 2020), tenderling (Stalking Horse Press, 2018), and Gossamer, forthcoming from the University of Akron in 2027. She lives and works in Michigan with her husband and her very photogenic cat, Soup.