<\/p>\n

Laisse-Moi Tranquille<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each night\u00a0I rinse the truck<\/p>\n

in the depot off Meserole.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I nod to the other drivers, tuck<\/p>\n

my braid in the back of my shirt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A rat floats through the oil.<\/p>\n

Shoe-trees of metal<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

line the edge of the iris.<\/p>\n

Knowing you will love me<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

almost kills me.<\/p>\n

Shipstation, mill whistle:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the glossy icebox<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t breathe inside.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Still Life with Fallen Candles<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The chef on the street is butchering something.\u00a0 Light from the cutlery<\/p>\n

glints against his skin, like the pink triangles in a kaleidoscope.<\/p>\n

Before the ghost market was a ghost market,<\/p>\n

it was a way to suspend reality: before the sun was in the sky<\/p>\n

it was a bright lozenge rotating in my rib-cage.<\/p>\n

Flowers are over-used in poems but that doesn\u2019t change the fact<\/p>\n

that they exist, all along the spillery, glimmering<\/p>\n

like a miniature solar system. Before it was rape,<\/p>\n

it was just a train, barreling down the track, slicing the image of the flowers<\/p>\n

in half. Before it was a man, it was a storm, and before that,<\/p>\n

it was my father\u2019s voice from outside the womb<\/p>\n

yelling at my mother, or the scream of brakes of the car<\/p>\n

that nearly killed her, and me, inside.<\/p>\n

Before it was a vessel, it was just a boat.<\/p>\n

I hear it before I see it: the long slow whistle<\/p>\n

tugging upriver, closer and closer, to carry you away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tusk \/ River<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I run my hand down his back, curved and smooth<\/p>\n

as a tusk.\u00a0 I think of my deranged brother. I think of the rain<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

that lifted the river to a new height, that year the water<\/p>\n

broke the glass, flushing out the only restaurant in town.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is still so much I don\u2019t understand, like why men like<\/p>\n

sex so much, why they think cumming is some sort of<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

accomplishment.\u00a0 I want to make it through one day<\/p>\n

without wanting to die.\u00a0 I want to be the river<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

that rises and rises, and moves through the streets<\/p>\n

like the hand of God, God who has no jealousy, no fear.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Love Letter to Future<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Loving you was like sucking cola through a straw. It made me sick<\/p>\n

about all the other girls. \u00a0Still,<\/p>\n

when I named you God, the world became more manageable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You dressed like a cleric from the sixteenth<\/p>\n

century: a single gold chain hung<\/p>\n

over your heart.\u00a0 Outside, sky the color of milk,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

rush of water through the bronze pipes in the garden.<\/p>\n

Most nights we didn\u2019t have sex, just lounged<\/p>\n

around free-styling.\u00a0 And when you got angry,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I laughed, and when you stomped around like a little boy I could see<\/p>\n

how happy you were, how happy you were<\/p>\n

compared to me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ferry <\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is warm below deck; the bells hurt your ears;<\/p>\n

your breath makes the shape of a heart on the window.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You drove here alone, seven hours in a seething rain,<\/p>\n

stopping at the border only to buy coffee<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and a bag of Doritos.\u00a0 Above deck, your cousins<\/p>\n

and second-cousins acknowledge one another politely<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

before turning back to their books. You heard<\/p>\n

them earlier, gossiping on the dock<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

like hungry dogs, wanting to know about you,<\/p>\n

about the hospital.\u00a0 In this fog you can\u2019t see the islands:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

they float past like strangers.\u00a0 Or you float<\/p>\n

past them, glowing, one hand to the glass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Laisse-Moi Tranquille     Each night\u00a0I rinse the truck in the depot off Meserole.   I nod to the other drivers, tuck my braid in the back of my shirt.   A rat floats through the oil. Shoe-trees of metal   line the edge of the iris. Knowing you will love me   almost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3538"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3541,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions\/3541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}