Eva Griffin

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Everything is perfect on a highway billboard

Scenery never interested me. The low sun over the low land. Trees that I’m told are different species all rustle green in the wind. I’ve seen the water and the corn, the cows and the hills. He calls this country strange, but in truth it’s so familiar I’ve lost myself within it. Look, he says, a wilderness of clover, Claude Lorrain clouds. Claude, I’m sorry, but your clouds pour rain like any other. I turn from the horizon and follow the scent of a good meal. Have it your way. We’ll make it special. Take a bite. When he pulls off onto the next dirt road and his driving hand relaxes, I take the all-American burger for my fixed star. It’s in my mouth and I’m sitting by a lake. Have it your way. I’m sharing fries with some cute boy. He smells like a day-old sweatshirt and his cheeks are hot. We’ll make it special. I hold the milkshake glass to his skin. He laughs at the cream on my small nose. Take a bite. In the five dollar room, he pulls down a stained yellow blind. It almost looks like sun.

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EVA GRIFFIN lives in Dublin. Her pamphlets Fake Hands / Real Flowers (2020) and one last spin around the sun (2021) were published by Broken Sleep Books. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, PERVERSE, Abridged, Anthropocene and elsewhere.