poems by rachel kellum
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Instamatic photo—
of a stack of mixed media paper
corners fluttering
weighted with gelli print plates
pliable, playful
irresistible to small and large hands
and a box of acrylic tubes, most hues
two brayers, pack of baby wipes
and two heaps of fern, artemisia
clover and rose leaves
waiting for the daughter, newly sonned
and mother, newly creped
to begin, to create
mother touched by daughter’s
candid shot, the mechanical click
and whirring unfurling
of the tongue of the machine
snatched and shook, placed
on a table to develop
anticipation
days later
found facedown in the trash bin
by the mother
who put it in her journal beneath
this poem, finally aware
after a night of perimenopausal
moping, that photos are not
necessarily memories or validation
and the women’s printed
garden leaves and hands, layered
deeper images buried
though not memories either
will suffice to jog the mind
into sweet recall of the windy
day they made prints in
an act of pre-Kodak archiving
and that the photo itself, a still life
deemed, for some reason
a poor work of art by the daughter—
is repurposed by the mother
as a guard against dementia
her own mother’s quiet new friend
who resends the same old photo
day after day by text
Wholly, but for
In my daughter’s home
her living dream
I wake
and walk
paths of roses
between evergreens
visit jabbering chickens
rest under a pergola of kiwi
chase her glorious bubbling
little boy
wholly
I am in it
but for missing
my love’s skin
his eyes so close to mine
we are nearness blind
In Praise of Our Bouquet
May our houses smell
of living!
Caramelized onions!
Roasted garlic, salmon!
Perfect pungence!
Sweet funk of dogs
and the marriage bed!
Sheets ripe
with salt, sleep and love
that does not succumb!
No! Not
to the perfumed
ravages of a rotting age!
Not
to Tide!
Anxious tidiness!
Unwashed until we must!
March into the fray!
Rise above the chemical
Dawn!
Rise, lift the blinds!
Let in the sun—
Light, our housekeeper!
Nose, meticulous historian
of home!
All praise the precious bouquet
of the holy biome!
break
dust on windows
gives light a place
to land
and cedar shadow
clear demarcation
we are not outside
we are in
he notices trees
browning
wonders drought
she is paying for
a two beer break
from herself
heavier, days
there are possibly
too many books
too many words
in the world
too many stages
she is dirt on glass
filter
there must be something
light, a man said
funny
to entertain
the wealthy
white
crowd between bouts
of sorrow
a break from the world
they make
the women say
bow out
with thanks to Barbara and Hillary, Terry and Dorell
Loving Into
I have loved into the mess of things—
through the carefully plotted luck
of a new greenhouse—everything green
in a few weeks! Lush at once!
It must be my green thumb, you think,
until next spring’s pill bugs.
I have loved into seasons that do not align.
Nothing thrives in sync, on time.
One side, often west, green through winter,
now overgrown with seed heads,
carrots lustily dusting you each time you pass,
spider mites taking up residence in umbels,
beet stalks gone to star-studded seed.
I have loved into other sides as well—
south, east, trying to do it all,
tend and protect all the tender greens
that disappear overnight to slugs
or wilt in summer’s early heat.
Prune tomatoes raring to raggedly leap
indeterminately above their cages
seeking some string to climb out of reach.
I have loved into nothing becoming
something beautiful at the same rate, but all
booming at some stage of growth or decay—
nothing universally, Instagramably photographable.
The only observable signal: I lost control,
or truly, this is how real greenhouses age
into the wildness of benign neglect
an exhaustion so pure, one can only surrender, trust,
much like my body, my mothering, my love.
after therapy
in the close quarters
of dream
Granny came to me
uncharacteristically
hugged me
her dumpling body ancient
enveloping
mine pressed into hers
like a thumb
in pie dough
her nose that familiar dollop
in generations of faces
and right behind her
warm release
my father
her son
having waited his turn
pulls me close
to press an awkward
fatherkiss
against the corner
of my mouth
hold me in his dark
discomfort I welcome
like an apology
like a late
thank you
I wake to
inbox poems
three in a row
on the dead visiting
when they
when we
are ready
moon kites
skirting a moon
gravity released
their faces into youth
skin floats over the bones
of four complicated kites
strings attached from every edge
to four hearts
or wherever the center
of the body resides
every cell radially
arrayed
around it, bouyant
that joy
tugging on the string
and running
The Imaginary Man in My Head
that pale, cool editor
wouldn’t let me write about sweetness.
He called it Hallmark shit.
So I kept it to myself,
lived it with my children,
unashamed to watch the minutes
go by wordless, illiterate
and toothless as a babe.
The problem—there is no record of love
but for what was written
in my children’s cells and mine.
I can only hope the hard stories
I chose to tell the man do not overwrite
the truth of our lived love,
the endless hours we wrote
upon each other.
The days were long and the years were short, the old mother said
At Sangre’s desert feet I wake from a nap after a week with my children and grandson under towering evergreens, breathing in the Sound. I jolt in sharp panic, confusion that years of constant attention, proud presence, babies at my sleeping breast in family bed for years, the books and books and books I read, growing cast of character voices, countless steamed broccoli florets and chicken and sack lunches of carrots, peanut butter and jelly, apples sliced, sippy cups washed, school work begged and dallied, sleepless fevers and yellow stained cloth diapers and tooth fairy notes in curly script, the realm of naked toddlers, dancing wildly on rocks and cawing like ravens, bed jumping and good night kisses, all of it, all of it, over, memories faded but for videos and photos I fear will never be printed, just linger as fragile code. I rouse in slow motion dread. Did it happen? Where did it all go? My life now spread before me in service of others’ children, my life expanding and shrinking toward what? Time for myself? What I dreamed when my children were young and now is barely here in snippets a teacher steals before breakfast, after dinner, with her exhausted husband? My bed the only place I’m free. My body’s nerves, the tree of me, three-dimensional history of lost memories, beg me to dig myself up, careful, root ball. Or simpler yet, or too severe, take a branch with my knife, replant myself, new cutting, at my grandson’s feet.
with thanks to Carissa for the title