A Simile for His Voice

by Treehouse Editors

Sara Pirkle

Like the compass in a bat’s brain
guiding it through glassy nights
to light on damp grass and worry mice
from their hushed hiding spots,
his voice inhabits my head, scrambles
the channels so that my thoughts
keep returning to evenings in his bed,
when we tenderly troubled back
the spread and dismantled
each other with trembling hands,
pleasure lurking like landmines.

Sara Pirkle is the author of The Disappearing Act, which won the 2016 Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry. Her poems have been published in Rattle, Reed, Entropy, TAB, The Raintown Review, Emrys, and Atticus Review, among others. Sara has received writing fellowships from The Anderson Center, I-Park Foundation, and The Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences. She is the Assistant Director of Creative Writing at The University of Alabama, where she also hosts the Pure Products Reading & Lecture Series.