tess wilson
Rally Kid
Three times a year, mom strapped me tight
on her back, packed rain gear, traded dirt road
for interstate for second turn on the right, just past
the sign, before you hit town. Hot between her thighs,
a BMW 1960 R60 purred, pushed through
Idaho, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee. We
twisted with it.
If paradise is real, it feels like denim,
three days sticky, sun in every seam. Like bugs
between teeth. Like a kickstart. Numb knuckles.
Like throaty morning revs, exhaust snaked with coffee
steam. Forehead sweat blessing. Baptized
in bearing grease. Gut vibration revelation.
When I say love
I mean piston pump.
As of 2016: Tess Wilson earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Chatham University and most recently served as Assistant Editor of Hyacinth Girl Press and Reader/Carpenter for the Pittsburgh Poetry Houses project. Previously, she was an Associate Editor and Online Layout Designer of The Fourth River, Editor/Illustrator of This Time: An Anthology, and a Poetry Editor of Inscape Magazine. Her work has appeared in Inscape Magazine, NEAT Magazine, The Crawl Space Journal, the annual Free Poems series, and the “Girls and Sex” issue of Squad of Sisters Zine. When she isn’t collecting very small things, she runs State Bird Press, a micropress featuring zines and illustrated works.