Ellen Hagan is a writer, actress, and educator.  Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2004 & 2008 and can be seen in Failbetter, America! What's My Name?, Check the Rhyme, and Submerged: Tales from the Basin.  Ellen holds an MFA in fiction from The New School University and her debut book of poems: Crowned, will be published by Sawyer House Press in the winter of 2010.

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you were a girl still.

tank tops for every occasion.

salami sandwiches for lunch and

menthol cigarettes with tight

white- shirted boys at dinner.

wasn't the sitting in place, and

walking nowhere, magnificent?

not the right word?  no.  it

was brutal.  no?   maybe i'll need

a thesaurus.  but you were

tanned legs and the kind of girl

who'd go anywhere.  with any-

one.  once.  once you almost lost one

of me at sea.  your clothes shed.  your

curfew done, and you in the ocean, with

a boy who was not yours.  but who

would have been able to keep you

anyway?  and how i hate saying this,

but who would have wanted to

then?  all nights of hitchhiking, halu-

cinations, tongues in mouths,

fists, fights and fast girlfriends.

none.  none faster than you.

 

 

her nose is mine. the hook. slide.

the hump, then river of it. arab.

 

how many times do i claim it before

i am comfortable having it on my face?

 

her acne. back now. like hers, my skin

rages. chest. back. cheeks. neck. fore-

head. chin. nose. my god. my face,

 

a constellation. rugged with potholes.

the scarring marking me. my skin a design.

like hers. i see the deep pockets. the oil

 

slick we are. like me. like her.

my face. a map home.