Emma McCoy

POETRY

Eve’s Collection

Rock with a line of purple running through it. Dried leaves, red and orange. A small crystal. Peach pits and avocado pits and plum pits that she flicks at Adam when his back is turned. Weighty sticks good for leaning on, grass woven into a bowl, a snail shell and a turtle shell so big she could bathe in it, on land, if she wanted to. A tuft of lion fur, dried chestnuts, a small pumpkin, an anklet of cherry stems. A picture of the garden carved into soft wood with flint, a gift from Adam. Three blue stones, identical, found at the bottom of the river on the day she wanted to see how long she could hold her breath. Carrot slivers, peach slices, roots and cashews and thin flakes of apple left in the sun to wrinkle like fingertips. All the words of the day: beloved, darling, love, see, look, here, think, walk, me, yours, mine, God, night, eat, look, come, where, good, fruit.

Bruising later in life

I found out I don’t like being hit the only way I knew how:
I let someone hit me. Martial arts was not for me.
The grappling, I liked. Body weight, physics, holding
and letting go and the intimacy of the small spaces.

But, someone might say, didn’t you and your brothers
hit each other as kids? No, I’d reply. When your brother
“has delays,” doesn’t know the difference between play and real,
play changes. Allowances must be made, this I knew,

and when the pastor talked about being a brother’s keeper,
I knew. Taking care has different shapes, and one shape
is adulthood, wrapping wrists, bowing before entering the ring
and learning I do not like to be hit, not at all.

Fighting has different shapes as well. With hitting off the table,
we children would hide things, shoot foam bullets, and figure out
which pointy words hurt the most. And yes, like other
siblings learned, there is a difference between play and real,

what can be said and what must never be said. Fight fair.
Brothers, know I love you. Brothers, I want to fight honestly
with myself, like grappling, like the line between anger and love means
something. There is truth in the curve of an outstretched neck.

Help me, brothers. I find I am often hit. When I watch the fighters
on the UFC channel, they bow before they enter the ring.
There is blood and movement and speed and I cannot see
what they mean and what they don’t. What I do see is this:

when one is down, hunching to protect their neck,
the referee jumps in to pull the other back. That’s enough.
Punches must be pulled. Brothers, see the black-clad figure
who comes between the fighters, and see how it is God,

coming between me and myself.

Double Swear

I’m freeway driving between spurts
of rain when I see it:
a rainbow. A double one, really.
A pinkie promise, this doubling,
a spit-in-your-palm oath.
God, do you promise not to wash
away this freeway?
God, do you swear
you’ll not flood my heart again?
The preacher man says this sadness
is not from you and I half-believe him.
The other half says this:
God, keep doubling your promises.
God, stay put.
I am driving as fast I can
and I swear I’m getting closer.

Emma McCoy has two poetry books: This Voice Has an Echo (2024) and In Case I Live Forever (2022), as well as two nominations for BotN. She’s been published in places like Stirring Literary and Thimble Mag, and reads for Chestnut Review. She’s probably working on her novel right now. Catch her on Twitter/X: @poetrybyemma

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Image: Eve by Gustave Moreau (1885). Public domain.