Backward Land

Backward Land

Tara Propper

"she speaks spanish like
you," he said, baptizing memories

in the kitchen. Summer self develops
like stories he wants to tell.

They are pedagogical and perpetual,
loving in both directions.

The texan evening brings
light like her, living long enough

to experience normality as anomaly.
Gulf streams across glossy grass,

collecting like painted portraits.
The sky has swallowed them

like deep-red afternoons.
And she's as lovely as children

waving, youth-misted.
They are remembering

to remember themselves
full-born.

---

Tara Propper
Poet & Professor

Tara has earned her MFA in Creative Writing and PhD in English.  Her poetry has appeared in the Southampton Review, Literature Today, Taj Mahal International Literary Journal, Moveable Type, Ekstasis Magazine, Vagabond City Press, and P – Queue. Her chapbook, This body was never made, is under contract with Finishing Line Press. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English in the Department of Literature and Languages at the University of Texas at Tyler.

Photography by Szabo Gedeon