This month, we offer the chalk outline left on the pavement. Next month we:

sigh

Submission guidelines can be found here.

The Poem Where She Says Yes

My advisor tells me—across the dusty orange light
of his wood paneled basement office—
your poems all have the same sense of longing and rejection
and somehow they’re all funny, too.
I say—wondering how long these wooden walls have listened to lonely English
majors lament—everywhere I go there I am,
meaning I am always longing, always rejected, always funny
and my poetry is merely the chalk outline
left on the pavement
looking crooked, but somehow silly.

But, Gary, this is the poem where she says yes.
Floral curtains, decades old Shakespeare poster,
this is the poem where I work up the courage to ask her out
and she responds, delighted, right away.
No self-deprecation needed, baby,
‘cause we’re going out on Friday
and once we’re out we may just keep going all the way into next week
or next year
when I will hand you—
you know it, I know it, and the slouching fern on your windowsill knows it—
another poem
about rejection.

Mary Liza Hartong lives and writes in her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. Her work has been published in Country Living, the Saturday Evening Post, the Nashville Scene, Writer’s Digest, and many more outlets. When she’s not writing, you can find her combing yard sales for treasures with her wife Bridget. Mary Liza’s first novel (Love and Hot Chicken) is out now from HarperCollins.