poems by rachel kellum
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October Monarch
because Becca found cancer in October, when I always remember
There are butterflies
in my stomach— chrysalis
ache of acid turning
bitter legged worms into monarch
wings. I throw back my head
gaze at sky, open wide my mouth
let in light. They crawl my column
of breath past teeth
and tongue, perch on parched
lips, unfold and dry. Then one
by one leap! flutter! wing away
to warmer climes where they
eat flowers, lay eggs in someone
else’s grief and quietly die.
2010/2011
I danced around
I danced around
him because he
was a good lead.
I danced a dance
I couldn’t hear inside.
I could only follow,
and follow with halting
feet. A man likes to teach.
His hand on my lower
back, a nudge,
spin out, then tug,
dip, reach. I did it well
enough and smiled
for the show. I tried to add my own
steps, but bruised
his toes. I danced five,
then ten feet away,
and he stopped dancing
entirely. He watched.
He always said
he didn’t like to dance
alone. Someone laughed
at him as a child.
But I’ve always preferred to dance
solo. And when he
slowly worked his turns back
into mine, my hair
fanned out as he spun me round.
Back in his arms I
pushed him down, crawled up his legs
and spine, held his head
to the ground. Though he is strong,
he stayed there
long enough for me to run,
booed off the stage.
When he finally stood,
he didn’t cry or bow
and the crowd went wild.
2010
I was planted and my roots grew
That is what roots do.
Saguaro drowning in a swamp.
Arnica wilting on a beach.
Redbud leeched on desert plains.
Yet reaching into earth,
for sun, for what we need.
Where is the shovel?
Where are my hands?
These needles, this heart leaf,
these buds, too anemic,
too deep to wrench out
of ground and leave.
January 2010
Camping with my daughter and her friends
I. Jose shares over crackle and smoke
If I could design what I was
I’d be the coolest thing ever:
I’d have antlers and angel wings
and I’d be a gorilla.
II. Learning to see while they swim
Clouds billow up blues beyond tubes,
depths beyond canvas. How to hook
this space in the heart?
(Girls in bikinis squeal.)
III. Teenage boys and waterfowl banter
Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude!
Like! Like, Dude!
Not EVEN! What
EVER!
2010
in Disney World, waiting for nigiri, sipping Ichiban, enduring karaoke
On a stage
two children
sing
we
are
the champ-
ions
off key,
and finally
there is
authenticity
in this too
perfect world
built for them
and their parents’
money.
2010
magnetic poem one
Brilliant popsicle scent
Of carnival child
Murmurs time
Drips eternal corn
Remember the puddle
2010
Tres Leches en El Dia de Los Muertos
~for Rebecca Lynne Kellum Vanega
What I will set out for you, sister, is the cake you never made for your husband.
The recipe you printed wasn’t good. I found it on your desk days after your eyes flashed into death.
Three milk cake, it said.
Probably some gringa’s sorry attempt to recreate her magical Nicaraguan vacation.
Cake after cake I’ve made, searching for what is most luscious, most possibly the taste
that drove your search on the computer that day, months before you knew you were dying.
And they’ve all tasted ok, a bit dry, too coarse, not subtly sweet enough. Until now.
Silvia Barajas Ceja wrote her recipe down, said to have only happy thoughts while we bake, or the cake will be ruined. She has a story to prove it.
And the symmetry of the recipe promised life, promised unities, dualities, trinities, even pentacles of sweetness:
Of course, preheat the oven to the ever alchemical 350 degrees.
In the first bowl, combine what is dry: one cup of flour, one cup of sugar, one tablespoon of baking powder.
In the second, what is wet: the whites of five—yes, five— eggs, one for earth, one for air, one for water, one for fire, and one for mother space. Beat them into white peaks. Into their yolks in another bowl spin two more liquids: a half cup of milk and half-teaspoon of vanilla, liquid incense.
Thoroughly spiral the dry and wet into one, divide them again into two buttered, floured, circular pans. (You will want two. One to eat warm right away and one to chill for three hours. Silvia says it’s better cold. And patience has proven this is so.)
Be sure the oven window is clean because you won’t use a timer.
You will watch the discs rise, golden, done. Pull them from the heat.
Drop them upside down upon two plates.
Puncture the underbellies with countless holes. They wait to receive.
Now, in a third bowl, make a triskele of milk from mothers we’ll never know, and drop your purist snobbery: one 14 ounce can of La Lechera sweetened condensed (Yes, La Lechera. Don’t substitute, says Silvia, and I say, don’t think about the corporate corruption of Nestle. Remember: it will ruin the cake.), one 16 ounce can of Carnation evaporated, and one cup fresh milk—whole, not 2%. Lastly, add a teaspoon of vanilla, to marry the three. Blend them slowly, smoothly.
Lick the spoon. Again. Again. Then pour this cloud over each golden, swallowing sun.
The wet and the dry, again, one.
And I will whip the cream with unmeasured sugar and dollop your wedge and forget the berries as you would. This cake is about milk, after all.
I’ll leave it somewhere you will find it. Where are you?
You have whispered you are the blue in the outlet. I will turn on the light,
leave the cake on the table. This is the one you seek.
Fly into my eyes. We’ll eat.
2010
To my crow’s feet
You used to only fly from smile
or bright squint. I refused dark glasses,
afraid I’d miss reality, that grass
would be less vivid or artificially more,
or the sky a perpetual storm brewing.
I refused sunscreen, afraid chemicals
would be worse than too much UV.
You dug your toes in deep.
Now, at thirty eight, you do not wait
for smiles and cloudless days. You write
the history of my happiness
like a map, hieroglyphs, Braille.
My blind fingers read your rayed geography
reaching over cheekbones toward windy hair.
I wear dark glasses, slather night
and sun cream, study your slow sure gait.
I’ve cried. But you, you fly, raise
my face, lift my gaze above
what can be seen of me
to the sun of me in your beak.
2010
In the beginning
If
for whatever reason
when I grew from colliding invisible cells
one a drifting still cocoon
one a swimming moon with tail
both composed of hugging
trembling molecules
and
smaller still
atoms
charged planets chasing each other
in vast microscopic space
around endless little suns
little suns just more empty space
glowing inside with quarks
self existing lights in space reaching
for other lights
colliding
dividing
multiplying
always beginning and dying
then I am satisfied it all begins
like this
for whatever reason
though I like to think it is love.
2010