2 poems

WHILE THEY'RE HERE

I let the mosquitos have their way with me.

Late in the soupy heat of a summer afternoon, I’ve covered myself

in poison and still, they persist. Pulling blood

from my thighs, knees, back of my neck, and arms.

I’ve heard when a teenager cuts themselves they just want

to feel something, anything. I’m oversimplifying things again.

But when the news says once again that the world may not

recover, I’m not sure what else to do. Just to know

we’re both still here, I let them eat me alive.

GHOSTING

Yesterday I found a curl of your chest hair

looped in the afghan my grandma knit for Christmas.

Your toothbrush still in a glass next to mine, I think

if it stays there long enough, you

might come back. Real ghosts make themselves

known from time to time. A cold breeze, unexpected

face in a bar of oatmeal soap.

After my grandfather died, the garage door

opened and closed on its own. Projector slides

from his Vietnam trip, all inexplicably

upside down. Today when I pulled our sheets

still warm from the dryer, white as bleached

teeth, they smelled only of Tide.

Melanie Tafejian is a writer and educator from the Pacific Northwest. Her first book manuscript was a finalist for the National Poetry Series and the Alice James First Book Prize. Her work appears in, or is forthcoming in Four Way Review, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Northwest, and The Los Angeles Review, among other journals. Melanie serves on the editorial staff for The Raleigh Review and received an MFA from North Carolina State University. She lives in Washington State where she teaches writing at community colleges.