what goes wrong

by Alicia Wright

I trade homework for a dime bag

of shake on the old tennis court,

let a stranger shotgun smoke

into my too-eager mouth,

covet the slim worm of a mustache 

crawling his chapped upper lip.

A girl warms her hands

in my pockets; a boy

hooks a quivering palm

around my throat.

I untie the wrong shoes;

unbutton the wrong jeans.

I fall too far into sleep

in the wrong rusting car.

Alicia Wright is a writer from Appalachia whose work appears or is forthcoming in Antiphony Journal, The Inflectionist Review, Does It Have Pockets, New Feathers Anthology, and elsewhere. Her first poetry collection will be published by Pulley Press in 2026. She holds an MFA from Bowling Green State University and currently resides in West Virginia.