Carrie Conners
Keep Your Chin Up
To the person who put up the letters on the VFW sign advertising
CHICKEN PARM
& ASTA
dinner on Thursday night: nice work. You made the right call.
This Is Me Now
My eyes blinked from neon pink
when I opened the box of new running shoes,
not the modest burgundy I ordered,
a throwback to my preschool maroon
velcro Roos with the hidden pocket to stash
a quarter for candy at the Marshall Dairy.
These were a shade darker than highlighter pink,
enough to make you reach for sunglasses.
My husband, confused, “You picked those out?”
Even my dog seemed suspicious,
though she can’t see pink. It was the year
of Barbie, so I thought I’d give them a shot.
Maybe they’ll be safer. Get drivers’ attention
as I chug around the neighborhood at dusk.
Honestly, I just didn’t have the energy
for customer service. The pink seemed more
florescent against my normal jogging clothes,
blacks, deep purples and blues, like a bruise.
The effect was immediate. People gawked.
Made eye contact. Talked to me more, Nice day
for a jog. A car honked. I flipped the bird.
Hot pink’s an extrovert’s color. I’m not
cut out for it. I stare down at the concrete
or up at tree leaves to avoid anyone’s gaze.
But I still feel it. Flush pink as I bound down
the sidewalk. And, I swear to you, I run faster.
Carrie Conners, originally from Moundsville, West Virginia, lives in Queens, New York and is an English professor at LaGuardia Community College-CUNY. Her first poetry collection, Luscious Struggle (BrickHouse Books, 2019), was a 2020 Paterson Poetry Prize Finalist. Her second collection, Species of Least Concern, was published by Main Street Rag in 2022. Her poetry has appeared in Barrelhouse, Kestrel, Split Rock Review, Killing the Buddha, and RHINO, among others. She is also the author of the book, Laugh Lines: Humor, Genre, and Political Critique in Late Twentieth-Century American Poetry (UP Mississippi, 2022).
