1
0
By Shiloh Capiak
Shiloh Capiak is a writer and artist from Eugene, Oregon. She is studying English at the University of California, Berkeley. She helps read and edit poetry submissions for the Berkeley Poetry Review.
I.
gazing above at fabricated stars,
soft fragments of reality.
nebulas of thought
dangled like soft, ripe
peaches just out of reach.
i lift my hand and feel only
milky fuzz, a thousand stars.
not one of them is you.
you told me you loved me,
and i needed you to hold melting
water in your palm
drifting, dripping
out of reach just
above a crown of
soft roses and thorn.
you told me you loved me,
and i told you about god,
about an infinite force
above us that understood us
and how i believe,
i believe, in the
same way that my grandmother’s
bitter church believes in me.
II.
hope is a heavy thing, like
iron in your palm, cool
and untouchable, put it down.
pick it up.
cyclical, like
belief and disbelief.
you are all screaming
like katydids and i
am seven again,
holding soft against me,
the rumble of the truck
beneath my bones. i can
feel it against my skull,
the cool iron, the katydids,
the release,
the tumble and fall
onto tough grass
and marked against my cheek,
you believe me,
i am a heavy thing.
III.
dance through the aisles
of a place that curses you but
you don’t know yet.
call her, and listen to
her soft animal on the line
recall twists and turns before you
knew how to fall. smile,
but it feels bitter in your mouth
like scraping orange
against your tongue.
dance beside the hospital bed,
you know, you really are
too old to do that. hold
onto a bitter tongue and
a sweet memory and
hold the iron against
your teeth.
