poems by rachel kellum
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16 and 19
Taller than their mother, now men,
heavy- hearted heads their inheritance,
sometimes they are little boys, straddle handles
on rolling suitcases to ride them,
long legs Fred Flintstoning down the ramp
to plane entrances. Then they are
holograms: mirages of toddlers, 5- to 12-year-olds
prism-tilting out at all angles superimposed over
grown bodies like time ghosts.
2019
After the Hot Springs
Despite the time
Change, I slept,
My body its own bed
Of buried salt water.
Lithium infused, my dreams
Lounged around
My edges like fat elders,
No longer self-conscious
Of saggy arms draped
Along pool ledges,
Outstretched like a hug
Headed nowhere.
2019
False Metaphor
He fell to earth
fall equinox.
For months she too
fell, and fell, felt sorry
for the forest,
sighed apologies to trees.
The thought of her own
climbing one of its
harmless trunks
to leap into
the lowest share of sky
felt somehow like she
by benevolent neglect
betrayed the forest,
released a tight fist
of seeds too soon.
Her green pinecone.
Her own sorrow stones
passed on unwittingly,
dropped early,
too raw to root.
False metaphor.
She sees now in the sag
and hears in drips
of late winter snow,
walking through
a gentle piñon grove,
that it is the forest
who felt sorry first
for him, for her, and broke
with love to save
them both from air.
47
after Nathan Brown
To the touch, my face feels
like a bloated marshmallow
when I wake, the kind
about to slip its skin over fire.
Puffy, warm, loose. Not so
fine lines and nearsightedness
combine to make memories rise.
My mother’s voice in her late 40s,
50s, 60s, 70s, before her vanity
on a small red-cushioned
wrought iron stool
in the master bathroom,
magnifying mirror parked
like a goblet of mercury.
Hearing my morning approach,
lifting a folded, cold wash cloth
off her eyes, wide blue and bright
with disgust at her body’s betrayal,
she would bark, “Look at these eyes!”
and jab an accusing finger
at the soft face, not the mirror,
that has always loved me.
2019
I Can Never be 16 Again and Wouldn’t Want to
Though there was that boy with Florida
Eyes who listened to strange, blue
Music yet smiled like a guiltless child.
A child with muscles, cool tennis shoes.
Football player, track runner, woods walker.
Rain chased him everywhere, across fields,
Over water. He couldn’t escape. Neither could I.
Not on the sail boat on Lake Springfield
Where we fell asleep, ever virgins, prom night.
Not in his dad’s blue-black Corvette, hugging
Back road curves through corn to Riverton.
Not in the woods on our backs looking up
Into yellow leafed hearts of giant oaks.
Not in the catfish slip of the Sangamon,
Dangling legs daring the river-cut cliff.
Not in my basement’s windowless dark
Where an endless kiss could end in salt.
And it did. We did. On the frontage road
Witnessed by headlights and stars.
I couldn’t hold the bruised cloud of him.
He drifted off, past Tallahassee, Atlanta,
Over the panhandle, casting a shadow
The shape of a boy all the way to Illinois.
2019
Late for the Haiku Workshop
For Sue Ellen
Piñon filled window
Unwashed dishes and bodies
Usurp a timely arrival
2019
Kids and Dogs
When you have kids and dogs,
that’s all you have, a grandmother told
her daughter once, who later told me,
a young mother bemoaning the slow
disintegration of my precious things.
Dog-scratched leather couch.
Ripped loveseat. Urine scented rugs.
Walls smeared with strawberry jam.
Shattered handmade ceramic bowls.
Vomit-stained, dog-haired car upholstery.
Kitchen table scarred by knives and forks.
I fantasized a future in which my stuff
survived mayhem. Now it has arrived.
I can guarantee: when you have kids
and dogs, you don’t even have them.
2019