I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl

By Karyna McGlynn b. 1977 Karyna McGlynn

It’s no wonder I’m always tired with all these tract houses—

It’s night & cold

on my belly in the undeveloped field now

I have to bury her

clothing inside a black garbage bag in plot D

police cars roll past but continue down the treeless parkway

even after shining

their lights on me in my freshman sundress

I can only assume

they don’t see the significance of my presence

but I must say 1994 is a simpler time—not everyone is suspect

I crawl up next to

my old house & look through a lit window

my mother reads

a book in bed I want to knock on the glass, there’s something

I need to tell her

Karyna McGlynn, “I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl” from I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl. Copyright © 2009 by Karyna McGlynn. Reprinted by permission of Sarabande Books, Inc. www.sarabandebooks.org

Source: I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl (Sarabande Books, 2009)

Biography

Poet Karyna McGlynn grew up in Austin, Texas, and earned a BA at Seattle University and an MFA at the University of Michigan. She received a Presidential Fellowship for her doctoral studies at the University of Houston. Her debut collection, I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl (2009), won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize from Sarabande Books. Her work has been featured in the anthology Best American Nonrequired Reading (2010).
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