At the I-10 and I-295 junction in Jacksonville, Florida, After the Lights Went Out & Just a Moment (remembered so vividly) by E.C. Gannon

there always seems to be a woman 

in a Suburban taking up both lanes

and eating a hundred-calorie breakfast, 

the radio on so she doesn’t have to 

think too much. I’m trying to merge, 

staying as far left as possible, 

and I still can’t tell if she’s going south, 

and I’m not sure she really knows either; 

she’s preoccupied with all those suburban, 

middle-class cliches, and now she’s 

swerving, and I’m honking on the highway

and she doesn’t hear me, so I honk again.

She looks up startled, confused, and even 

if she were going south, I’m not sure 

it would make any difference; the road 

will take her where she’s supposed to go,


and now I’m swerving under the signs 

for the Int’l and Daytona Beach, 

and as the woman cuts in front of me, 

I can’t be mad because I’m trying 

to decide if she was anything like me 

when she was younger: dreaming, 

yearning for something she wasn’t sure 

life could offer, loving aimlessly, without 

direction, listening to bad music too loudly, 

writing her name in too large a font, 

and, if so, would that mean I too 

am destined to settle, become content 

framing and hanging the family I’ll create 

in some secure, insular mediocrity? 

Was this woman ever hungry? Does aging 

satiate you? Is it inevitable that I’ll lose 

this desire, this inertia? I can accept

sagging, wrinkling, cracking and groaning, 

yes, but not growing satisfied.

Please, anything but that.


The woman and I merge onto the beltway 

together, and I turn up my radio.

After the Lights Went Out

I can still smell the gasoline on your clothes, 

your signed hair. I can still feel the way 

you shuddered into me as I lowered you 

into the bathtub. You didn’t make a sound, 

just bit my shoulder. I was wearing a wool 

turtleneck, so it didn’t matter. 

On the windowsill, between the static, 

the radio reporters sounded panicked. 

They said we must prepare for the water 

to stop flowing. They said we must fill 

every mug, every glass, every pot.

I tried to make quick work rinsing 

the rubble from your body, cleaning

the ash from your open wounds. It hurt, 

I knew, so I kept repeating that all we had to 

do was get through. We just had to survive. 

You lost consciousness as I scrubbed.


Just a Moment (remembered so vividly)

I’m thinking about nineteen and I can smell 

the bad weed and taste the cheap beer

from the backyard kegs of the house rented 

by the local club tennis team, and as someone 

asks a question, or, rather, yells it over 

the pongers and pulsating music of adolescence, 

I take the last sip of my drink and Michael steps 

behind me so he can better hear the conversation, 

the topic of which I cannot remember, my back 

against his stomach. He asks whoever was talking 

to repeat themselves, and they do, and I can’t 

tell what’s said because I’m moving backward, 

pressing my body into Michael’s and wondering 

what he would do if I turned around and tossed 

my solo cup to the swamp snakes and wrapped 

my hands around his torso, standing on my toes 

so he wouldn’t have to crouch to kiss me. Instead, 

I stand there, our sweating bodies moving together, 

pieces of a puzzle I think I’m not supposed to have. 

Michael says he agrees with something and steps 

away from me, looking for a new conversation.


At the I-10 and I-295 junction in Jacksonville, Florida: “This was one of the first poems I wrote that I was really excited about, but after a couple of years, two pages worth of cuts, and a few rejections, I just sort of forgot about it.”

After the Lights Went Out: “This is not in any way similar to anything I’ve experienced personally, and while I generally tend to shy away from writing anything autobiographical, I was afraid this poem might be too disingenuous. I also was concerned about the lack of specificity but didn’t want to reference a real historical event because it’s not my place to speak for real survivors. I didn’t have it in me to fully delete it, however.”

Just a moment (remembered so vividly):  “As someone who doesn’t use labels for their sexuality (and so never feels “queer enough,” so to speak), I am very nervous about having any writing with heterosexual overtones out in the world, meaning most of said writing immediately ends up in my trash folder.”

E.C. Gannon's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Assignment Magazine, Connecticut River Review, The Meadow, Olit, and elsewhere. A New England native, she holds a degree in creative writing and political science from Florida State University.
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