So. It has been a LONG time since I posted any poetry. This is not to say that I haven’t been writing any — over the summer I did in fact do a lot of writing. The thing that makes it difficult is I go through phases with poetry, and it takes me a long time to warm my mind back up into it. So mostly that time is just writing and discarding. But THAT’S HOW WE IMPROVE, right? Or at least I hope haha.
This poem was written sometime in early summer, I think? I’m not entirely sure, but it’s not very recent. I just realised that I’d never shared it, so. (Summer is probably my favourite poetry writing time. For some reason it gets me super in the mood.) I was trying out some different styles, and I don’t know if I’d go back to this one, but I hope that you enjoy reading anyway. 🙂
lemonade lies
the sandstone wind is an arid, brittle heat that carves
through the canyons of your body. you are steeped
in the parched gold of grasses. the earth
is thirsty for more plum-perfumed words to
slip from your tongue like a bruise, like the way
your mother looks at you and your lungs crumple inside:
breathless, stormclouds flowering across eyes & hands
& hips. every place you have traced
the syntax of her skin.
(but that is a language she does not speak.)
//
at night your body entangles itself in sheets
like a feverish wasp, fingers locked
in the honey of
a sticky caesura.
quenched with chlorine, your thighs scale
into miniature maps
of your sins; of hair half undone
in a promise you cannot keep. but
the cool drains quickly. her eyes trickle elsewhere as
clouded insects catch the evening sun.
your structure hums in readiness of the snap.