Elle Shim

 He loved me the way an orange
 peeled in the next room permeates the universe 
 for a night. In the morning
  
 I drove back from Chicago still stinging, 
 trying to scan ditches for deer in the dark, 
 the glint off every mile marker
 mimicking the eyeshine of a shaking creature ready to leap.       I drove
  
 as he made his way back to her, buying an airport coffee, texting her a heart.
  
 Under his fingernails, curled rakes 
 of skin—the orange’s,
  
 mine. 

Elle Shim studied theatre as an undergraduate in Wisconsin and completed her MFA in poetry from the University of New Hampshire in 2012. She is a poet, teacher, and comic artist currently living in California. Her work has appeared in Poor Yorick Journal, Cider Press Review, The Cortland Review, and elsewhere. If you like, you can follow her @Sundog_Hooray on Twitter.