FALLING IN LOVE WITH A LAKE, PART IV
a tap & a lick & a sip, falling in love with a lake again, the static of it, myths swirl submerged as desire & i sign postcards con desiderato & sentimentati. so many things can be true at once— lessons from nightmares, a blood play station, looking for rorschach in the lamppost spiders, bruises confettied as raspberries, a deepening, hypnotic movement, glacier-made. what springs from stillness when you allow it; what aperture ceases to falter & lets the joy whoosh in in swoops & hollers? the sweeping away of hesitations, an indenting like a typewriter’s, touching all your little silvers. they say not to swim past the light but my hips are slick & unafraid, i want the whole body of it, cerulean swallow & enter. what would your first meal be, if you could start over? any question better than ending.
I TUCKED BACK THE PASSION WHERE I COULD SEE IT
through bedroom eye window, aloe-slathered view of the street. i wonder if she’ll bloom, rubbing salve on my stomach— what i burnt you have already carved, mutable as i am, obedient & underhand. in this circus you spit & i say yes & we ignore anything labeled catastrophe in ugly font. we saw a whip in the gutter & you lamented, belted as we are in our desire, flexed tight. when i outgrow i see a new moon, verdigris rain kiss, a butch lean, some iridescence. i open my palm to cradle you, cactus or flower, whatever it is you have to give, whatever room.
GREENWOOD
in the cracks of the tombs we lick magnificent, all the memory & new twisting. her face on film as i keep herding absurdity, the gold & orange, dollopmoon, crisphope, mossypromise. the shit of known & unknown origins; how she gave me her shoes, how i cleaned her hands. is there something green in the folds of the future, purrs of lost forest & attics without endings, an overcoming like a branch in tall storm, & the quantum bottom of a rock you used to kick & kick into the mouths of wanting & the leaves fold back & there’s no longer a man in the photograph just a sparkling dash, a splat, a hint.
Chelsea Fonden (she/her) is a queer poet & facilitator with work featured or forthcoming in No, Dear Magazine; Yes, Poetry; Hanging Loose; and Adult Groceries. Chelsea reads poetry submissions for The Los Angeles Review and hosts the quarterly NYC reading series Tadpole, which raises money for local mutual aid. She has been awarded writing residencies by Carroll Hall Garden and Sundress Academy For The Arts. Chelsea lives in Brooklyn with all her plants and her perfect dog, Holiday.