3 poems by Heather Poyhonen

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NOT FARTHER


Open the infrequent
          shutter on chaos
Hone its milk
          Jazz kicks up
the dust the mire
          fickle rose blanched
pink. Call it
          blushed. Feverfew
heather and other
          unsightly weeds
lifted up over
          time. It’s pining

I’m after. Sit
          on my lap.
Our pulses blink.
          Be that close.
The longing
          a dorsal fin
far from shore
          arcs in its season.
Suddenly in view
          swathing slow moons
knuckle the eye.

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[I RAPID SINK MY LIMBS BICEP DEEP]

I rapid sink my limbs bicep deep into new water reaching for the honey of you It’s black inside and fathoms   acute resign I          Please fill me again Grow in my womb Adopt me          Make me forever pink margin of you

     How do I show you I can’t reach the holes          Shatters of me stuck early my continuum I outlive you but I am still 14

I am been for 14 years Heart minnowed abysmal into the sea of me
My calves took over          cramping bullets every time you vomited in the mint-green mixing bowl from your leather blue recliner Please don’t pick me Please someone come into the living room to pour out the puke They glare at me not moving pretending unseeing her retching I get hot all over and hold my breath Do they empty it in the toilet or in the sink Dad probably empties the bowl says

     true about my worthlessness     I am so full of holes
I can’t move anymore          My right lung is collapse   If I could grow new organs maybe we’d have a chance Fill me Raise me I think you could still be here when I get married give birth reach your age of death

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CORRIDORS

And though it's always crowded you can still find some room
for broken hearted lovers to cry there in the gloom
and they're so lonely, oh they're so lonely,
they're so lonely they pray to die.
- Elvis Presley


Doors I knock against in my heart hotel. Apportion losses
shut loves in and visit when you can. Professional mourners say it’s the way to
go.

                                   The light’s always on in room 42.

A dove nest aflutter in green dangle of California redbud. I want to take you outside—red
blood count, cytoplast, engorged capillaries.

                                                  Walk with me
                                        your high arches mark the sand.

My heart is an old shoe     (in full swell)
                    with young ladies in it showing off dresses in the windows.
Pretty white Easter dress, ribbon cinched waist.

I woke up                    dress at the foot of my bed and
pastel chocolates.          Loved
it so much I dressed
Earon as a girl. We would be
angels together and save you

               every day until we couldn’t.
I wore the angel costume
four Halloweens in a row, silver
                         halo shivered its shine, I dyed
my hair orange to be a demon-
possessed nun, then dyed it green and called myself a tree.
          (Mostly I want to follow you past the door.