Lizzy Petersen

Security Question

Every 60 days I will change myself.
Password: I-N-N-F-I-N-N-I-T-T-Y.
Hopelessly inefficient. The mind
a one room apartment with the wingspan

of a phone number.
Hint: When I was twelve
and a car crashed and a seatbelt
snapped her neck—afterwards

Jamie’s freckles become a mnemonic:
faded in winter and reappeared
in summer. The memory of her
reduced to points. A point.

The photograph’s overpowering
sunspot. This act of
somewhat forgetting.
It’s for safety, mind you.

Lizzy Petersen is a St. Louis native. Her poetry reviews have appeared in Coldfront, Poetry Magazine’s Harriet Blog, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Sycamore Review. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from Apalachee Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, FifthWednesdayPlus, Moon City Review, New South, and RHINO.