By: A.J. Huffman

charged me $4.39 for a gallon of milk and a smile
that sent two very different shudders down my back.
Attraction and fear shook me into a time loop.
For a moment I was sixteen, flirting with a senior
who would die two days later in his sleep
of unknown causes. Flash forward 35 years,
and I am back in my present body, blushing
at the twenty-something ginger who could be
his son, and the thoughts of the physical
examinations I’d like to perform to see
just how similar they were.

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A.J. Huffman has published thirteen full-length poetry collections, fourteen solo poetry chapbooks and one joint poetry chapbook through various small presses. Her most recent releases, The Pyre On Which Tomorrow Burns (Scars Publications), Degeneration (Pink Girl Ink), A Bizarre Burning of Bees (Transcendent Zero Press), and Familiar Illusions (Flutter Press) are now available from their respective publishers. She is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a two-time Best of Net nominee, and has published over 2600 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, The Bookends Review, Bone Orchard, Corvus Review, EgoPHobia, and Kritya. She is the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.