Mystery Ending With a Girl in a Field

Poetry by Beth Bachmann

You’ve heard it before—but listen:

I brought you into this world,_
I can take you out of it._

I know what you’re thinking.
It wouldn’t be the first time.

Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t.
Nothing’s resolved. But what does it matter?

I could pull these petals off all day,
mouthing he loves me, he loves me not.

Published: Jul 1 2006 | Online 2006

Beth Bachmann

Beth Bachmann has published poems in The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, AGNI, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Her first book, Temper (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009), won the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. (updated 6/2010)

Online 2006