I could make a religion of coincidence.

The famous book and doughnut stores
we hoped to visit: blocks apart
on the randomly chosen road.

The part I told him I once played,
Stella, the night before: scored
by the lead in the new Almodóvar.

The book my daughter
thought better of buying: abandoned,
curlcovered, on the nearby grassy hill.

I could believe in a hidden order,
a way to know I am in the right place,
a way to say, look how the world aligns
for our amusement. Stop planning. I don’t.

2012

seaside

waves roll ever forward
white tumbling fingers gather
greygreen water, fall flat and thin

my wordbody begins
and ends like this

broken, beneath, always opposite,
the blind undertow

something indefinably me pours
back into the deep. red things

scurry sideways, seek escape
like ridiculous clowns
with soft guts and too many hands

2012
Seaside, Oregon

Featured Poet at Talking Gourds

At Wilkinson Public Library, Telluride, Colorado: Interview with Rachel Kellum by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Art Goodtimes:

Open Mic and Reading by Rachel Kellum:

Orvis Hotsprings Elegy

People are known to walk
on red stones without clothes

fragile animals
pink tipped gravity

sprawled across wooden chairs
gently gesticulating

up to their necks
in warm water

arms afloat
sideways gaze

one or two look
straight into your naked face

nude, there is no need
to exchange professional smiles

we read truth in folds and curves
crisp or blurred tattoos

everyone changing shape
toward the dead

willing to lose
everything to be seen

except me in my black bikini
you hiding between your belly and knees

we save such revelations
for the bed

2012

The Path of the San Miguel

The constant exhale
of the San Miguel

through every word
and easy smile
and ten exhausted
summer eyes at day’s end

lends mountain peaks
and bridal veils,
white places I’ve seen
but never been,

crawling through rocks
that make the water red.

2012
Placerville, Colorado

As is your mouth

There is only one reason
hummingbirds
found us.

Red.

The rest is all
drunken
sweet breath.

2012

Enter the Western Slope

When water wears me
down, what shape
will I be? Canyon, spire,
sharp walled butte?
What is loose falls scree
at my feet. Sage grows.
You can’t find firm ground.
Angles are steep.

It seems wrong
what is hardest
stands so long.

I become a landmark,
some kind of sign.

Don’t be fooled.
Impossible toothy leaves
sprout from my fissures.
Roots a fine filigree,
fingers seeking pinholes
I’d rather ignore.

Every blind spot is a war,
a tiny door where I fall out of myself
to let you in, slow and thin,
one grain closer to nothing
but air standing there.

2012

The Eclipse

1
How can one give another a solar eclipse?

Too many instructional text messages
and fumbled cell phone calls,
mandatory interstate pull overs
when thunderheads finally clear,
driving further east out of shadow,
stacking three cheap pairs of shades
on one face and peering through one ply
of facial tissue. Pass the stack quickly.
Hold the tissue an inch from noses,
sit in the back seat behind tinted windows.

That’s how. With five layers of protection.
The wrong tools. Some will go great lengths
behind a guise of exceptional experience
or edification, afraid of being forgotten.

2
If only one could become as permanent,
as rare as a memory of crescent sun,
or better, sunring—if one finds oneself
at just the right place on earth—
one might be remembered at least
every so many years. Remember when she…?

It takes dedication, eclipse chasing.
Ambition to stare down immortality.
One could go blind, one could see
some kind of lingering bitten light
burnt inside closed eyes, bright holes
wherever one looks. An irony of focus.

Don’t worry. Vision returns to children,
lovers, friends. Eyes and skin adjust
to absence and never again.

2012

Doggerel for Lost and Found Wisdom Teeth

Until I slurped soft food for most of one week,
rice baby cereal, yogurt, Campbell’s Cream of Chicken Soup,
I didn’t know the deep, joyful animal of my teeth,
or how long it takes to thoroughly chew a bite of food,
or how mysterious the cavernous corners of my jaws,
or how far my tongue can reach, dislodging
vanished crumbs from fleshy wound and crease. Who knew
these tiny, precious bones nestled in such tender pink
could beg and plead ferociously: feed me something
wild or tough, let me earn my keep. Now I know
my wisdom teeth have always been my secret leader.

2012

Low Water

The gentle South Platte carves eyes, no, almond-shaped
Sandbanks inside itself, juxtaposed with weedy islands

In the shape of odd legs. “The water looks alive,” he said.
She looked for the life he saw. It was there, crawling light.

A nod. Mosquitos not a problem yet, the two could dream
Of spending long days here, sitting side by side with quiet minds.

Content. Perhaps a little bored or spent. Noticing the echoed bloom
Of clouds above the distant cottonwoods. Dissecting dried weeds.

Perhaps both remembering the stolen day they waded
Face to face in this same place four years ago, shirts pulled up

Just enough so winter’s white bellies could mend and touch
While water traced the almond shapes of ankles.

No one watched from the high bank that day.
Even herons overlooked the danger of that kiss.

Today there is no kissing or risk, just the simple shapes
Slow water makes of sand and love and flat bliss.

2012