Genevieve Betts

Yen

1. Desire. A longing
like a long string tugging
at the inside of something,
the body-
friction pulling at the skin
when removing a stitch.

2. Craving what I can’t have-
back home, the carnival fare
of Navajo taco-
Indian fry bread
with refried beans,
salsa and cheese.

Once a landscape of cacti-
prickly pear and ocotillo,
a forest of saguaro.
Thin trees of palo verde
and the way the heat feels
under their meager shade.

Giving into sweat. Shiny
brown knees and multiple tan lines
on top of feet-
overlapping lines of flesh,
ivory and beige and bronze
and the held pose of a lizard
on a rock, uninterrupted
except for the occasional
set of push ups.

The smell of chlorine, a bleachy tin
emanating from each pool, blue
dotting every yard down the street.
Third degree burns
when toe overlaps flip-flop.

The clean line of the horizon.

3. Now, no horizon.

Instead, a back east formality-
City Hall on Market Street,
and the Broad Street Bullies,
a new history for a transplantee
unfamiliar with buildings
built before 1950.

Alleys and nooks and crannies
of buildings and basements,
fire escape mazes,
and tiny row homes sandwiched
between sky scrapers.

On the street, the smell
of fried Chinese food hangs heavy.
A whiff of grainy mustard
prickles the nostrils, bearable
only with a freshly baked pretzel
doughy in the center.

Four seasons. First fall-
sweater weather and leaves
described with words
usually reserved for horses:
dappled chestnut,
roan or bay.
Acorns that crunch under the feet,
disturbing squirrels that pause,
then shuttle up nearby trees.

Then snow and the scratch
of unlined wool, static electricity,
cable knit caps
and hair fighting underneath.

Spring umbrellas, clear bubbles
and shiny rain boots sidestepping
sprouting bulbs, likely tulips.
The first rogue warm day leading
too slowly to a mild summer
weak of sunlight.

And trips to the shore-
boardwalks, carnie rides,
sideshows and popcorn.
The carnival is familiar,
but the fare foreign-
something called funnel cake,
a batter-fried web of dough
dusted with powdered sugar-
the taste of someone else’s hunger.

• • •
Until I was 28, I spent my entire life living in Arizona. Nothing about that seemed strange until I moved to Philadelphia and realized just how unique Arizona is after all. Although an entirely new landscape surrounds me now, Arizona provides the sole setting for all of my dreams. “Dream” deals with that odd connection my mind keeps making between my new home and my hometown, how real the heat feels against my shoulders. “Yen” reacts in a similar way, comparing both places. Now that I find myself moving once again, this time to Brooklyn, I cannot recall having dreamt once of Philadelphia.

Genevieve Betts’ work has appeared in (or is forthcoming from) Conversations Across Borders, Rougarou, The Bakery, Cricket Online Review, Clockhouse Review, Poetry Quarterly, NANO Fiction, as well as other journals and anthologies. She received her MFA from Arizona State University and currently teaches creative writing for Arcadia University’s low-residency MFA program in Philadelphia.