i found a lover and we left the city by Patrycja Humienik
temporarily. crackle of the fire said as much.
temple into the sprawl of limbs, which came later. first
the alchemists: oysters we ate quietly as we could,
laughing, not saying a word, eyes full of language.
and it wasn’t that no one had ever touched me before,
but it had never been like this. tunnel-less. not a search
for a prize, zippered pearl to coax out of grieving.
not the scarcity of hardship or the dismissal of it, but we did look
up: airglow: sky a cicatrix: purpling, paler. damage,
and the need to undo it—not to fix, but to unribbon
the past. my mama grew up in a rural place, rolling jade
hills, my name betrayed her wish to leave that lack.
szlachetnie urodzona: desire for wealth and its associated ease.
i don’t blame her for using a name like a tool for weeding.
i, too, prune and tug at my story, but she wanted me to live
up to my name, and for that i might blame her, i learn other names,
plants that please me: forsythia, hyacinth, pyracantha; my lover
gives me a dried bouquet. i prefer weeping
willow, even seaweed, something of water. i want
not to say this but to be understood with my eyes, the way
i was, for a moment, by the fire. but some lovers are not for
lasting, though that part comes later, if i, must i, tell the truth.
© 2014-2020, BOAAT Press. All rights reserved.
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