Back Door

By SUSAN COMNINOS

 

or, sonnet of cheating with a friend’s man

Something about the hinge 
of your hips, the way you held them straight

when you danced. You pushed my palm to fringe:
the pelt of your belly, then sought the gate 

you’d take into my body. Slick 
as a wet floor that ruins 

suede shoes—the sand tick 
that hangs on from sea dunes 

and back—you imagined a door 
tucked between two wounds, then pushed 

there. “Choose,” I said, before 
you slid backwards to try ruched 

skin. “Not that,” I said, meaning that I knew 
that I loved nothing—neither her, nor you.

 

Susan Comninos‘s poetry has appeared previously in the Harvard Review Online, Rattle, The Common, Prairie Schooner, and North American Review, among other publications. Last year, it was shortlisted for both the Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize and the Cider Press Review Book Award. She lives and teaches writing in Albany, New York.

 [Purchase Issue 21 here.] 

Back Door

Related Posts

Michael David Lukas's headshot next to the cover of The Common Issue 28.

Podcast: Michael David Lukas on “More to the Story”

MICHAEL DAVID LUKAS
Michael David Lukas speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his Issue 28 essay, “More to the Story.” Michael talks about his writing process for the essay, which began when a dark family mystery moved him to research a side of his family he’d never learned much about.

cover of HEIRLOOM

March 2025 Poetry Feature: Catherine-Esther Cowie’s Heirloom

CATHERINE-ESTHER COWIE
Her eye-less eye. My long / longings brighten, like tinsel, the three-fingered / hand. Ashen lip. To exist in fragments. / To exist at all. A comfort. / A gutting. String her up then, / figurine on the cot mobile. / And I am the restless infant transfixed.

Dispatches from Mullai Nilam, Marutha Nilam, and Neithal Nilam

VIJAYALAKSHMI
There is fire everywhere, / both inside and outside. / Unaware of the intensity of the fire, / they maintain silence / like the serenity of a corpse. / From the burning fire / bursts out a waterfall tainted in red. / All over the shores have bloomed / the flaming lilies of motherhood.