zeus

you rolled into my life like
late-summer thunder
tossing my hair
and breaking my limbs

shocking me with the suddenness
of your smile

i wanted only to cut a lemon,
squeeze its sourness on
the ragged-cut edges of the leaves
to keep the world from turning brown.

but tomorrow kept stealing moments from us
and you were gone
just as sudden as you came

leaving only the rising scent
of blacktop after a heavy rain
and me,

wishing you would have been here
for my spring.

Anne Mild is a twenty-something student with too many notebooks and not enough quiet. She likes alpacas, her pug, and space. In her spare time she works towards earning a graduate degree in History and making the perfect soup.