Around two a.m. we pulled off I-84the night filing its tooth to a pointI got down on my knees in the truck stop parking lotheard someone say Never seen a dog look as busted as thatI thought about the woman whose lover set her on firebehind a gas station just for tossing her drink on himMy eyes white from no sleep I could have swornI saw Jesus in the jerky she tore with her back teeth& I was glad I didn’t have a drinkI remember a girl who got away I rememberanother named FawnOnly eight hours between Salem & Boisewhere anything can happen that can happenin a car or out of itIcefall over the mountain pass in Maythe sky the sky the skydark blue like a vein or a patch of moldsomething going bad somethingturning back on itselfWhen I finally slept I dreamed of onehundred deer clotting in the snowThe girl who got away I remember got a book dealFawn they never found so no book dealDriving through the river gorge at sunrisemy lover said I know where I’d hide a body out hereIt’s a story I’ve told before but I’ll keep telling ittill they find meknee-deep in prayer at the Love’s againtrying not to get doused in gasolinenot even thinking about a way out of this valley
True Crime
The death . . . of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably,the most poetical topic in the world.—Edgar Allan Poe
Feature Date
Series
Selected By
Share This Poem
Print This Poem
Copyright © 2025 by Natalie Eleanor Patterson.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Natalie Eleanor Patterson (she/her) is a poet and editor from Atlanta, Georgia, with an MFA in poetry from Oregon State University. She is the author of the chapbook Plainhollow (dancing girl press, 2022) and the editor of Dream of the River (Jacar Press, 2021), has work featured in Sinister Wisdom, South Florida Poetry Journal, The Hopkins Review, and elsewhere, and has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. In 2026 she was a finalist for the Wren Award in Poetry. Natalie is Managing Editor of Jacar Press and a reader for Southeast Review, One, and the Julie Suk Award. She is currently pursuing her PhD in poetry at Florida State University, where she teaches undergraduate courses in the English Department. Her debut full-length collection, The Red Year, is forthcoming from Iron Oak Editions in late 2027. Visit her website at poetnatalie.com.
18.4
Baltimore, Maryland
Johns Hopkins University
Editor-in-Chief
Dora Malech
Senior Editors
Iris Lee
Alejandro Lucero
Ivan Suazo
Managing Editors
Natalia Berry
Sofia Fall
The mission of The Hopkins Review is to publish today's vital voices and visions in literature, culture, criticism, public-facing scholarship, and the arts. Established in 1943 by Elliott Coleman and relaunched in 2007 by John T. Irwin, it celebrated its 15th year of continuous publishing in 2022 with a commitment to creative excellence and its dynamic, diverse, and inclusive present and future.
Contributors to The Hopkins Review have included literary and scholarly luminaries such as John Barth, Donald Barthelme, Harold Bloom, Stephanie Burt, Erica Dawson, Stephen Dixon, Denis Donoghue, Claudia Emerson, Tony Eprile, Marilyn Hacker, Terrance Hayes, Vanessa Hua, Millard Kaufman, Frank Kermode, Richard A. Macksey, Jill McCorkle, Shane McCrae, Alice McDermott, Carl Phillips, Natalie Shapero, A. E. Stallings, Adrienne Su, Colm Tóibín, Helen Vendler, Claire Vaye Watkins, Afaa M. Weaver, C. Dale Young, and many others.
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.
