Her black bugged
eyes peer out between hosta
and hydrangea in the flower bed.
Mottled brown fur, blood
vessels inked red on the paper-
thin maps of her ears,
a whiskery nose twitch.
When she jumps away, one foot
flops grotesquely behind.
She seems unbothered by the dead
weight, a burden born,
perhaps, by narrow escape
from a tire’s tread or the jaws
of a fox. This morning she’s alive –
how lucky.
Summer’s always tired from the start:
already thin clouds scuff the sky comfortable.
Already, ivory silk lilacs have been reupholstered
in the dried brown velvet
slightly bleached beneath June’s shining windows for decades
in your grandparents’ house.
Already, the hot air above the horizon has gathered dust
like the top shelves cob-webbed since you can remember.
The season’s one of patting pockets after something lost,
something shiny and new you swore you just had.
June is already too warm for comfort.
You asked me once what keeps me
Returning home, time and again
What I love about this place
I asked you
What do you hear?
We paused to listen to the
Whispering quit of nature
You answered -nothing, I
hear nothing at all-
That is why you will never
Understand how I love this
Place, or how it is in my bones
I hear the sounds of the world,
Wind, trees, the very breath of
God himself, but you hear nothing
1.
The horse asked for fresh linens,
curled like galloping rapids running,
the crash of white spume, pale sheets.
I want to be a man for one night—
call me at the little hours.
She didn’t call him then at all
(he never returned to the quarter that morning.)
2.
The dove was wrong.
She was wrong.
To go North, she went South.
She believed wheat was water.
She was wrong, she believed
Great Neptune, the stars,
the green night, the morning.
She was wrong.
That the stars were morning dew;
That the heat was snowfall.
She was wrong.
That your skirt was your blouse,
your heart, your home,
she was wrong.
(She fell to sleep on the levee.
You perched on an olive branch.)
3.
At dawn, astonished, the rooster.
His echo returned
a young man’s voice
and virile signs were found
within by the bird.
The rooster was ecstatic!
With eyes of love and vigor,
he leapt flat-footed into an orange tree!
From the orange tree, to a lemon grove;
from the lemons, to a patio;
from the patio, the able rooster jumped
into a bedroom,
and the woman who slept there
embraced him unabashedly,
where the rooster was astonished!
Author: Rafael Alberti
Translator: Manny Grimaldi
Sometimes it gets too hard
So much sickness and death
Uprisings and riots
Drugs and guns
I must run away
To a world of my creation
Where love and happiness thrive
No one goes hungry
The creek runs clear
The grass is green and soft
And bunnies can fly
I should have worn a dress
not some
big dumb ugly suit.
I only bought it
because it was
enough to cover my
body and chest.
Have you
ever tried
to eat dysphoria
one honeybun at a time.
I felt
empty
like no one.
I tried to fill the void
with Dough and Sugar.
Not sure if it still bugs you
That I didn’t take the time
to find a nice suit
that matched.
Instead I found
a dead guys suit
the day of,
and wore it with
sneakers and,
my dads shirt.
Wish
I asked you to take me dress shopping
we could have tried them on together.
I wasn’t fully out to myself
only really out to you,
and I was terrified.
All I wanted
was to be the girl
dancing with you.
