We both stay awake all night
trying to make it through a trial.
Pluck a spearmint leaf to rest on
a tongue like the body
of a savior, savor sweet green
and blue-tint flavor. Sharp cool
keeps one of us awake.
Fresh figs split open, reveal
slick insides. Eat just enough
to stave off slumber, stay
hungry. What else to sink
our teeth into to keep us going
until fluorescent dawn? You
sip the cold water, and my eyes
droop from the wine.
–
Caroliena Cabada is a writer based in Ames, Iowa. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in As It Ought To Be Magazine, Emerge Literary Journal, Kissing Dynamite, perhappened mag, and elsewhere.