On Inadequacy by Stephanie McCarley Dugger

We finish the day           the way water moves

               to make room for the body,

         one quick motion,           then waves

        and waves,          until it swallows us,           whole

and without fanfare.           Under these clothes

               (stained from planting tomatoes,

                  peppers, basil), I am incomplete,

           half mad with want,           crash-heavy.

      You are sound,            a make-shift

             raft,           wide and tethered.           We wait

   on the porch for the last dredges of sun,           watch

     the fireflies—          fewer this year

          than any years before—          stir in their

                 light-ritual.           It’s too early

            in the season for predictions,

                     but it seems we’ll need each other,

         a balance of flicker and design.

                It will storm tonight.           Tomorrow

                         will be as though today

                          never happened,           still and heavy

                   but for the new plants, who

         will shiver in their green,

   explode in the most glorious rage.

Stephanie McCarley Dugger is the author of Either Way, You’re Done (Sundress Publications, 2017). Her chapbook Sterling (Paper Nautilus, 2015) was co-winner of the 2014 Vella Chapbook contest. She is an assistant professor at Austin Peay State University and is Assistant Poetry Editor for Zone 3 literary journal.