Poetry by Sarah Horner

Carl Wycoff CC



Como

We make homes of temporary places—we are 
weeds rising from cracks in the street and lichen 
on a rock before it gets scrubbed off. Some things 

grow with purpose but we do it just because we can, 
just to say we did. We will look back and miss the
wandering way of our bodies—or maybe we won’t and 

that will be fine. Walking home in the dim 
and newborn morning, unreasonably comfortable 
because the snow in the street lights it up like day,

we are faintly aware of this transitory phase but 
mostly feel it’ll last forever—until one by one we start
packing and planning and pretending we’re ready.

We hold hands on the bus because that’s the time 
for it—sappy, drunk, paranoid. In the spring we recoup 
on the roof because we don’t have a patio but make do

with what we’ve got. It tints our feet black and we’re 
always tracking in dirt, reckless. But we will keep 
cleaning it up again and again until it becomes 

someone else’s job, others like us who will see
the dents we left in the walls, the hardened wax 
on the floor, the sparse marks that prove we existed.


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Sarah Horner is a writer whose work explores themes such as femininity and mental illness. She lives in Minneapolis, studies literature, and frequently ponders a future in the arts. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Defunkt Magazine, Across the Margin, The Bitchin' Kitsch, and Mantis.