I was three when I first understood
may garner
what cold concrete felt like
pressed against my bare skin.
Three when I survived a night
that continued to widen.
My dad sat beside me on the curb,
hands in his pockets,
waiting on a God
who had already missed
his prayers for years now.
I counted headlights,
sure one of them would be my mother
if I held my breath long enough.
The ride had ended hours earlier.
The woman with the keys
decided where we’d stay tonight.
Even dad’s denim jacket
couldn’t keep the chill
from settling in deep.
He smelled like gasoline and Busch.
I picked up the early habit
of breathing shallow.
When my mother arrived,
she didn’t ask a single question.
She folded me into the back seat
and drove in silence,
like the road had never done
either of us wrong.
I don’t remember the ride home.
Only the way my lungs
forgot how to open all the way.
Photo: Oleg Zarevennyi
Read our “Camouflage” issue in full
RAWGUE.’s 4th issue delved into the grey, moody, and cold atmosphere of winter. Yet it did not sink into the depths of madness or depression. Instead, it embraced this season of hibernation, allowing 31 artists from all over the world to present their timid work beneath a veil of quiet beauty.
May Garner is an author and poet residing in rural Ohio. She has been writing for fifteen years and sharing her work online for over a decade. She is the author of two poetry collections, Withered Rising (2023) and Melancholic Muse (2025). Her work has appeared in more than seventy literary magazines and anthologies. She is the recipient of first place in the 4th Annual Poet-It Like Poe Poetry Contest and a winner of the 2026 Woody Barlow Poetry Contest.
