two hours south of chicago, the car nuzzles against leftover snow like my body falling headlong into your familiar heat. you turn on the windshield wipers and show me how you would hook the moon right out of the sky with the curve of your forefinger if you could. I put my face over the air vent to thaw my teeth enough to tell you I haven’t felt real since I was thirteen and a mosquito sucked all the blood from my cheek. instead, I ask how you could be certain you were you and not somebody else. nobody knows anything, you say. but shouldn’t the body always know? you lean back against the headrest and let out a half a sigh. don’t you get tired of thinking so much?
Raised in Atlanta and Columbus, Georgia, Kianna Greene is a poet and writer living in Orlando, Florida, where she teaches creative writing at the University of Central Florida. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Salt Hill, Rust & Moth, Bellingham Review, The Citron Review, The Penn Review, The Indianapolis Review, Maudlin House, and other journals. She was the winner of Ashland Poetry Press’s 2026 Poetry Broadside Contest and a finalist for Frontier Poetry’s 2025 Misfit Poem Prize. She is an alumna of the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and the Key West Writers’ Workshop. Currently, Kianna serves as an Associate Poetry Editor for The Florida Review and Director of The Cypress Dome, the University of Central Florida’s undergraduate literary journal. More about her can be found at kiannagreene.com.