Two Poems – Carrie Laski

September 7, 2017

this poem was not about you but then suddenly it was about you

 

neutral carpet

nothing to hold

kill kill kill

lawn chairs in the living room make me

lose

my flame for everything

but sleeplessness feels fine!

opiatic and thin

I want nothing but dustless surfaces

to trace in the afternoons

when the sun is falling down through the stairwell

did you know?

that the sidewalks in Jakarta will swallow you whole?

like herons ingesting prey

like my excuses for staying in sheets that aren’t mine

like my ineloquent goodbyes on train platforms

that punish me

nightly

I walk from room to room

mouthing three words

again

again

more

I remember you!

shoulders, neck, mouth, thumbs—

scratching strings

how I could love you!

trading flesh

reading about New Argentine Cinema

this might take time

so let’s leave it for the morning—yes—

let it soak

extend the wine

 

 

 

box of mangoes

casts shadows

quite terrible

shade

my eyes and pay the woman I

wonder how I’ll get them home

 

then

heavy afternoon

hours to kill

windows

open catching sounds

radio from somewhere says the game is tied

 

reach for me don’t reach for me

bursting dark

screaming flesh

this

is what evening is

oh, say there’ll be rain in the right season