Three Poems by Erica Reid
The Drive-In Movie
Only some spy caper, something with flash
and tech and flesh, a film you and I can half-
watch as stars flick themselves on and off,
in need of a jump. Each car’s radio is reading
the same script in a different voice, but we
unfocus our ears and hear the cinema chorus.
The crunch of gravel has called us here,
the queer night-cuisine of pickles and root beer
floats, the projected light so clean it makes
children of us. The air turns too chilly for me
but I forget to mind, while you don’t even eat
the popcorn you are eating. The charged dark
blends the field of strangers and we all link arms
as we exit: you, me, and our intimate no one.
Swallows
On your stroll, you come across two dead swallows,
wish aloud that you could have somehow saved them.
Love, you cannot guard every baby bird — you’ll
starve
all the
falcons.
Two Eggs
lines are intended to be read in any order
once every heron has flown its nest
the sun will finally settle down
two eggs warm in their happy home
all atmosphere and cloudy haze
and we are alone, still talking
About Erica Reid
She/Her/Hers
Erica Reid lives in Fort Collins and is an MFA candidate at Western Colorado University. In 2021, her poetry was commissioned by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra; in 2020, Erica won the Great Isolation Writing Contest in the poetry division.