Season of Waiting

After I left you, I took up smoking. Dart
after dart hit pine below the bullseye, forming holes
in the wood that corked the hole in me. Tonight,
I pour myself a glass of wine, and go to sleep.
I play in my dreams—your arms pull at my hips
from behind. Tomorrow morning, I will wake
and you will be gone. The day will be spent wishing
I had picked up a dart in the dark. When I got sick,
I went to the cabin and did not speak
to anyone but the deer. Tonight, I rest under the pines
and golden honey locusts, waiting for tomorrow.

Kakie Pate is an MFA candidate in poetry at Emerson College and works as the head poetry editor for the literary journal Redivider. Her poems have been published in Yes Poetry and And So Yeah. A native Virginian, she currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts.