Sarah Frances Moran
La ComadrejaI thought
I’d developed past the desire for consumption. After the discardment in the past, allowing a woman to infest me set off blazing light warning signs neon bright and squealing. There’s beauty in the ability to skirt walls. to avoid the spotlight. to dance around the shadows of the searchlights. Even on high alert, she eludes me. She weasels her way into the poems that aren’t even about her. Setting up residence in the pit of me. Turning my soul into home. Poets Are Never LostNot to life or the splintering thereafter.
They rest between the syllables of words. Inside the neatly tucked crevices of all the things we wished we said and the things we wish we didn’t. They live on in the rhyme and in the rhythm of the way that words fall from our lips even when they quiver. Every sunrise Every sunset Every beautiful extravaganza of life that every person witnesses and gives voice to holds inside it the voice and essence of every poet – across every lifetime. They are never lost. They may wander and they may wonder where to. But the where to is an infinite. You can find them in the trails of words they leave behind and in the way those words settle and nest, inside your heart. PixieThe connection between my lover and me
began in the trails that run along the outer edges of my brain. Where a Pixie was born and elf ears mattered. That evolution started in my teens. Sparked in the way my hair was so heavy and held down all the ways I felt I was becoming. As it morphed from locks to fades I shed everything I was hiding in my hair. My sexuality, my doubt, my fear and the ways in which I felt I was inappropriately desired. Now, it’s a toss-up. It’s a funny look in the women’s bathroom but it’s also ecstasy when she runs her hands against the smoothness of my neckline. My hair reflects the revolutions of my life. How I know I’m larger than societal preconceptions but also how I’m under that thumb. How I’m stronger in this self, sexier in this self but also sometimes afraid of this self. Those trails she runs I know are paths she desires. I keep them clean cut so she can always find me. Your Shining Autumn, Ocean CrashingThe way the waves invaded the shore
I thought of his hands and then of yours, soft like cotton candy on my tongue. Made a choice on where to focus. You sang me to sleep that night and I asked myself had anyone ever written anything for me? and decided it didn’t matter Fell asleep on that stiff like whiskey bed Feeling the rumble of currents inside my gut Resolving to be bigger, mightier and worthy of your storms. |
If I were Jane GallagherThe answer would be yes.
I still keep all of my kings on the back row even though I’ve spent decades determining where to move them. Thank you for asking about me but Stepdads are Stepdads. Phonies are phonies. Morons are morons and my kings, remain safe. In my fantasy I go back to that time when checkers strategy was the looming decision, not whether the way you’re going to touch me might set off a series of dominoes and consequences that never end. But Holden, you can move your kings. Just pick up the phone and call me. Making Love To The SeaYou walk with feet against hot sand that cannot be kept from entering
the cool water. With the way the mist of the waves becomes a whisper, like a lover’s lips close to your ears drawing you in. You disregard your lack of gill. Forget the way the anatomy tells you, you have to be. Take the plunge into the unfamiliar and make it mold to your skin. No one ever realizes how hard that swim is. How it never occurred to you that you couldn’t enter those waters, until you heard all the screaming from the shore. How it didn’t matter and how those screams could never be loud enough to make you exit, because you were made this way, whether it was normal or not. No one ever realizes how beautiful and brave it is that even though you’ve been told your whole life you’re meant for the shore you chose to make love to the sea. Get Off Your Knees Boyall the scrapes
and all the scars that span the years of kneeling and wishing can’t give you the sky if when you’re standing tall and proud the kindest hand you offer is always an afterthought the sky will always turn its head juking your kiss to find the honest mouth with the courageous tongue the one that will spark the stars to shoot and make the moon shine bright the lips that bring a sizzle to the sun that goosebumps the landscape those will always win out over the hypocrisy of some kneeling the sky falls in love with your kindness… and its kiss craves the bravery that pours off your lips so get up or on your knees boy, it doesn’t matter just do it honestly |
