Anna Tregurtha

Albuquerque

Three in a row

We hold them, smooth and slick

Everything is flat and we can’t find the center

He comes out, holding a snake in his hands

“It’s hard to know what to do”

Two, side by side

I can’t really tell the difference

Struggle to find the door in the dark

It’s hot right now

But things will cool down later

The storm at the top chases us back down

One that I like the best

Orange and bright,

Like something else I know

A door and then a curtain

Kids and dogs and sprinklers in the street

“I want you to know you’ll be safe at night”

White Bark

White bark climbing up

The light turns off on its own

charred, metallic,

We will build a fort in the shade

I decide never to betray you again

She is filled with rabbits and I

imagine what it would feel like

Thin, shivering, a roll of foil

A perfect shimmering cube

Can you see in from the outside?

The start and the end

We demolish it together in the last days

Anna Tregurtha is a writer and artist. Her pieces search for patterns and harmony in routine moments. Anna has been published in The Forgotten Writer, Same Faces, JAKE, super / natural (Perennial Press), Backslash Lit, and POOL magazine. She grew up in the backseat of state-owned cars, driving around rural North Carolina with her mom who worked in tobacco prevention. The cars always smelled like artificial oranges. She lives in Los Angeles.