Upon Exiting Childhood
There is our hair
growing twice as fast
down our backs,
long and gray, along
side little dust mites,
past bicyclists and organs,
bullets and bellies:
full and round. There
can be valleys and trees,
Phillips head screwdrivers,
musical saws and quotients.
There is always a layer
of dust on a bookshelf
and two tiny screws
in our wallets. There is mass.
There is incense smoke
in our eyes. There are eyes.
There is one eye. There isn’t
a license to kill. There is there.
And over there is
Albuquerque and Jupiter.
There are witnesses.
There is witnessing.
Sometimes there are worms
we break in half, bodies
warm like bread in winter.
There are mountains of sand
on our palms and baby’s
breath fashioned into
wreaths around our necks,
heavy as gray hairs--
soft as melting teeth and gums.
Where We’d Be
- after Charles Wright
God only knows, Allen, where
we’d be without you, lost
in a judicial labyrinth
where time is a walnut, an escape
hatch, a whale-sized hole
we reach through for you,
our hands are just like Carl’s.
I pick up the telephone
whisper Allah to you in heaven
but I only hear the smell of tires
burning. I want to tell you that joy
rests at the top of every breath,
Allen. But you already know.
click-clank-ka-ching
Hit those keys once more.
Laura E. Davis is a poet and writer from Pittsburgh, the City of Champions. She is currently an MFA candidate at Chatham University. She has read her poetry on Prosody and her poems have been featured or are forthcoming in Redactions, Pear Noir!, dotdotdash, OVS Magazine, and Radioactive Moat. Laura is the Founding Editor of Weave Magazine and enjoys planning and attending literary events around town.
There is our hair
growing twice as fast
down our backs,
long and gray, along
side little dust mites,
past bicyclists and organs,
bullets and bellies:
full and round. There
can be valleys and trees,
Phillips head screwdrivers,
musical saws and quotients.
There is always a layer
of dust on a bookshelf
and two tiny screws
in our wallets. There is mass.
There is incense smoke
in our eyes. There are eyes.
There is one eye. There isn’t
a license to kill. There is there.
And over there is
Albuquerque and Jupiter.
There are witnesses.
There is witnessing.
Sometimes there are worms
we break in half, bodies
warm like bread in winter.
There are mountains of sand
on our palms and baby’s
breath fashioned into
wreaths around our necks,
heavy as gray hairs--
soft as melting teeth and gums.
Where We’d Be
- after Charles Wright
God only knows, Allen, where
we’d be without you, lost
in a judicial labyrinth
where time is a walnut, an escape
hatch, a whale-sized hole
we reach through for you,
our hands are just like Carl’s.
I pick up the telephone
whisper Allah to you in heaven
but I only hear the smell of tires
burning. I want to tell you that joy
rests at the top of every breath,
Allen. But you already know.
click-clank-ka-ching
Hit those keys once more.
Laura E. Davis is a poet and writer from Pittsburgh, the City of Champions. She is currently an MFA candidate at Chatham University. She has read her poetry on Prosody and her poems have been featured or are forthcoming in Redactions, Pear Noir!, dotdotdash, OVS Magazine, and Radioactive Moat. Laura is the Founding Editor of Weave Magazine and enjoys planning and attending literary events around town.
RSS Feed
