They Say You Learn Survival at a Young Age

           but I’m only beginning at 27. One summer I stepped through
a nest of copperheads.

    I didn’t realize there is nothing more dangerous than a home
until it coiled, tightened, rattled;

    smelled the coyote in my bones, the sin instead of marrow,
the claw and crouch 

    and locked the windows.  I swiveled through the cracks and
on the other side he asked, 

Are you wild canyon or wood? 

Meet Me in the Orion Arm

There’s a little light left
on the bed that your shadow hasn’t softened.

Sheet edges crinkle as I secretly watch you dress your
            bare back in a cloak

            of sun. Each freckle
a separate star on a galaxy I can touch. You’ll leave

for work and I’ll pretend to sleep through your kiss
    that orbits in a spiral

           of hours—a wax and wane
of our re- membering into that single system elliptical

and aligned. Where our atoms swirl, collide, and collide.
           When you close the door

            I whisper, meet me here.
And rose fingered dawn draws the helical path.

Chloe Roberson Wofford is a Ph.D. candidate in the Creative Writing program at The University of Southern Mississippi where she teaches English, and works as an associate editor of PRODUCT Magazine. She earned her MFA from Lindenwood University, and her work has been published in Bella Grace Magazine. She currently lives in Chatom, Alabama with her dogs, Zelda and Sid, and husband Clint.