Two Poems by Sara Kaplan-Cunningham

Lake Garda

I’m sorry. I hated all the men I met in Italy, 
but charmed them anyway. 

Drank limoncello during the day 
and spent too much on goggles

so I could see the waggling trout
up close. On the mollusk husks 

and sharp stones, I stood 
for hours, watching a snake 

struggle up slick rocks
only for the lake to gulp her down.

My bathing suit behaved. Clung low. 
Did me lots of favors. 

Why would I deprive the chorus 
of wolf whistles, lonely and long 

as mourning? Pulling smiles 
from the depths of my face. 









Cape Cod

She shat in her in-laws vacuum cleaner 
while her husband built drones in Ukraine. 
Tonight, the clouds move quickly 
in one direction. Her lips 
are stained with whiskey and Diet Coke. 
To be lonely, I know, 
is to have a higher tolerance 
for humiliation. She leans 
one torn cowboy boot on the seat 
between my legs. 
“When I step in a puddle,” she says, 
“I feel it in my skull.”  

Sara Kaplan-Cunningham received her MFA in poetry from the University of Houston. Her writing appears in The Cincinnati Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Sundog Lit, Washington Square Review, and elsewhere. Read more of her work at sarakaplancunningham.com.

20 July 2026