"Mountain Lion Trail", "Wearing Red Lipstick is Romantic", "Sleeping on the Floor in Summer" & "College Girls" by Haley DiRenzo

Mountain Lion Trail 

It was quiet that morning in the woods –

gravel crunching, light casting 

hand puppet shadows on the ground

through the leaves.  

We watched for the cats and kept the dog

close, jumping at broken sticks 

and pawprints in mud crevices. 

You stopped suddenly

a hand out to signal. 

No predators

but a Mama Turkey and her chicks

bumbling through the brush.

A silent harmony

of bobbing necks. 

We intertwined our fingers,

crook of a knuckle wrapped

round. A hand on the dog as she watched

with us, waited for them to brave 

the open. 

Looking for safety

wherever they were going. 

Like fools.

Like us. 

Wearing Red Lipstick is Romantic 

Even when it’s not quite the right shade 

smears streaks on my teeth, licked clean. 

Even when bleeding outside its penciled 

lines like ink pooling on soft tissue paper

or seeping deep into cracked-lip crevices

or half-left on glass rims, shining spoons,

red puckered rings like a signet marking 

the places I’ve wrapped my mouth round.

Rushing to the bathroom to check it’s still

in place, not giving a reason for someone

to laugh at my brazenness, my unblushing  

belief that I am the crimson-soaked darling. 

Even with unplucked hairs and dull teeth

glaring back beneath unforgiving lighting.

Still, when whispering goodbye at night –

hair tousled, hand on appled cheeks, smile

smudged and swollen, clear I’ve been kissed. 

Sleeping on the Floor in Summer

Take the crook of my elbow

its dimpled meadow

for my veins

and your thumbprint hook

held close to me

back to the summer

we discovered the blustering 

bites of fire ants

and lightning bugs in mason jars

against the moth-ball perfume dusk

the playing deck cards 

sticky from too many 

fizzed ginger ales exploding

their whiskey-tinged

liquid on folding tables

in that back patio room 

where the sun beat through

the screens in mesh constellations 

and the concrete floor

relieved us of the heat

our cheek bones growing 

numb against the cool cement

the fans whipping 

the air so thick 

you could pull it over you 

at night. 

College Girls 

The college girls at the gym 

lift heavy weights

while I did hours of cardio 

until the screen recorded an arbitrary 

number of calories burned 

then drank those back in vodka that night. 

How wonderful –

maybe girls don’t spend years 

wishing themselves smaller like I did. 

But in the sauna they talk about 

how they long for a natural ass,

one they don’t have to work for.

It sounds so much like my 13-year-old self 

that I understand girls are still craving and hating 

even when they are perfect

when they have no idea how beautiful 

they’ll find these bodies when they’re 31

looking at pictures

whiplashed by the sudden sadness 

that they didn’t appreciate themselves. 

I used to feel so close to a college girl

like I could still be their friend. 

Now I feel more like their mother

thinking of leaning over to say 

they’ll long for their current figures 

one day but also 

they’ll realize how little they matter.  

Haley DiRenzo is a writer, poet, and practicing attorney specializing in eviction defense. Her poetry and prose have appeared in BULL, Epistemic Literary, Eunoia Review, and The Winged Moon Literary Magazine, among others. She is on BlueSky at @haleydirenzo.bsky.social and lives in Colorado with her husband and dog.