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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