poems by rachel kellum
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Invisible Dog
When the day goes grey
my invisible dog gets antsy.
No one but me hears him bark,
frantic, while I slip on boots,
smiling at his silly grammar.
I take him off leash. He knows
the eleven-minute loop
by heart, is actually walking me.
Twitching toward coyote,
mountain lion, wild cat,
domestic dog, brown bear:
holy scat. All to the nose,
none to the lifted leg,
are sacrosanct.
He’s no ghost.
This pinyon church
in which we live,
his scented domain.
God’s favorite dog.
When we return,
I appear alone.
My husband doesn’t know
while we watch the screen,
invisible, my dog sits pretty,
watching me, hunting my eyes,
tongue panting gratitude and hope
for another go. I don’t.
2019
Self Portrait as Hydra
I slash at my own heads.
One lost, two gained.
Always budding.
Beast of Hera,
Barely visible to the naked eye.
When Sun is in Cancer,
My heads are near.
If disturbed, I contract.
Cut me into pieces: I rebuild.
Never a set number of heads.
Some say seven, some nine,
Others one hundred.
Only one is immortal. Guess.
I reproduce on my own
Unless conditions are harsh:
Winter, poor food.
I reach out for a mate.
One man’s morbid task.
They called him Hercules
But killers are weak.
The strong man lets me live, finds
My singular immortality
Loving me.
I live forever under
The right circumstances,
See without eyes,
Sting in response to light,
Align with moons:
Charon, ferryman of
Forgetfulness.
Align with Nix.
Non-zero.
My tiny eccentricity.
Larger than Pluto’s
Smallest moons,
Smaller than Styx.
Invertebrate capable of great
Contraction, still I reach
Through fresh water,
Digest what is whole,
Regenerate.
Stopped up in one place,
I burst forth in another.
2019
Happy National Poetry Month! Let Poem-a-Day practice begin!!
Here we are again, my poetry peeps! National Poetry Month is my absolute favorite month of the year, which might also be connected to the fact that April is the month of my birth. And who doesn't love spring after a long winter? So, let's start writing. I don't think I've ever actually written a poem for every day in April, but I get darn close. Here's a link to the NaPoWriMo page that gives us prompts to help us write a poem a day. Let's do this!
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