ice cubes clink in a glass
gently rip the fabric of time
I’m in an old Chevrolet
where a gang of bullies pass
the bottle around
I must
drink
If I don’t they’ll
pour it down my throat
I never consider
getting out of the car
It doesn’t taste
like birthday cake
unless
it tastes like
wax and smoke,
the drippings and
the drifting,
the wishes soaked
into icing
like an echo.
Did I ever tell you about the day
I got stopped by the fashion police
for wearing white socks
with sandals after Labor day?
They let me off with a warning.
I used to lay in the forest
staring through the trees
listening to them creak
and strain in the wind
and pretend I was
in the northwest
not this place
with the history
that I didn’t want
with the people
that didn’t want me
who played along
and it left the food
tasting sour
and I love you
was like licking
the inside of a
metal can of sauerkraut
but here I am
still finding places
to look up
and wishing
I would
have burned
all that history
a long time ago
maybe those people
that I’ve ruined
on running
wouldn’t carry
that scent of
death and fear
that seemed to
permeate
that
hollow
An old man with broken teeth
sits on the house steps
where he spits and sputters
hurling invectives
at no one in particular
I try to ignore him,
walk carefully past, keys
in hand just in case.
He is mostly a nuisance,
but sometimes, especially at night,
he lashes out, his talon fingers
scratching at the moon,
shrieking my name.
And yet another postcard, this one of Paris. A winter scene, the Seine with a graceful cantilever bridge, the Eiffel Tower rising from the distant mist while closer trees are perfect half-snow curves. An image copyrighted the year you entered this world.
The last one before this showed bison in a snow-blanketed Yellowstone. It was taken the year after you met. The message was brief, one of his puns. Have you herd I love you?
Others have come at random intervals, the scenes mostly foreign and undated. A man and woman, their dogs’ leashes tangled, the feeling they’re strangers or estranged friends. One of a church. We could have been married here. So many winter settings. Not surprising. But why so many of Paris, a place you’ve neither ever been, together or apart?
Do you foolishly save these in a box buried deep in your closet, hidden like your heart? Perhaps you throw them out, the read and unread; maybe you taunt your husband by letting them lie about. What would happen if you answered?
walking up
these stairs
again
the tears
pooling
in my chest.
i hear the
mighty words
pressed with a
stronger sword.
a call for justice
a cry for peace.
silver pieces
in return.
Some people called
My whole life a defense mechanism…unfairly
I thought. So I took the kids to the zoo
And bought a quarter’s worth of birdfeed
to appease a free range parade of contemptuous
Flamingos who looked ready to spit their wad
right in my eye; backing away in fear
I spied a pair of metallurgical porcupines
Copulating under a rose hedge. Immediately
I knew that in this insanely speckled world
The flapping flipping flopping dishevelment
Of love was just around the corner
Cyclone kiss christens honey ships
Salty springs unhinge ruby kings
Control your mind, my girl
Riots silence whispers, undo
Binding battles, through and through
Control your mind, my girl
Mirrored poetry strewn and burned
Ashes of evidence, lips turned
Control your mind, my girl
Battle beats bloody feats, harsh hearts
Supple surrender disembarked
Control your mind, my girl
♡Anastasia Z. Cunningham
06-25-2020
