fine point
dear mom,in my next life
I want to be a nuclear warhead
all cozy in my silo
like a mom & pop motel with its gift wrapped soap.
I’d miss all the tender social events
but imagine me fashionably late!
(I can see the dread on your face when I peek at you)
instead I’m Penelope pink in the shower
foamy
and with cockroach legs.
my skin is a desert
complete with a bleached arching bone
a sticky tongue
I’m a model
a carbuncle of airplane glue
I’m porcelain and undrinkable;
I’m a mayonnaise jar filled with false teeth
and only my hair is plantlike,
only my toes are worth eating.
Elemental
I always thought I was water, salty blood,a flitting, nervous little bird, be
cause that’s what my mother named me in the nick
cause I look like her she’d say.
I feel water, the breathing of the ocean brings me to my
celestial core
and there’s been plenty of times I have hidden under the bed,
or in the closet, small and dark, and tucked behind the linens
while my parents called and fretted that I’d been spirited away
by a stranger in a dark Cadillac
I do like to disappear behind my cousins the trees, and I enjoy their stiff embrace
despite not being ever called Daphne by anyone
not even in error.
My mistake was brought to light by the good doctor
who corrected my vision for
Shine and fluidity, be
cause although I am always cold I
get to a good glow when
heated enough and slow.
PNB Jan2014
A 1957 Buick Special, exactly turquoise,buffed beyond showroom;
it must be California, because there’s a hill before the beach
and the sky is darker east.
All the people are in the parking lot,
chip and seal bleached with age,
and the wheel fits the hand firmly,
is preternaturally smooth.
Rolling becomes bliss,
the air is warm, humming, lit with pretty colors.
The Buick seems immortal,
Running off the pavement without hesitation,
without loss of traction,
without any friction to the circle under palms.
The people in the parking lot are far forgotten;
here’s a campfire in the sand,
the Buick rolls over the flames, undented, undaunted,
home at last in these hands.
choke
there’s the coffee you makefor the feeling of the steam on your face
when the sky is that carnivorous dawn color
and the streetlights are not yet off;
all I want is a pair of leather pants
and for the ribs to show in my back cuz
breathing is what gives me motion,
not hitchhiking with damp shoes
not frost on the windshield of a rusted car
you know somebody died in
no
I’m a dolphin
cover me with your hidden clothing
and then I’ll sleep
Su Zi @xsuzi00 is a poet/writer, artist and editor of Red Mare, a poetry chapbook series; reviews have recently appeared in Handy Uncapped Pen and Rockers For Life. Art offerings are on Etsy (etsy.com/shop/suzi00), which is the only online point of sale for Red Mare, and various other of my one of only work.
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