poems by rachel kellum
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Curried
The night I made a perfect homemade chicken curry,
it wore the house around its pungent, yellow air.
I opened windows and doors to save my carpets
and clothes from lingering odor, knowing my hair
would not shed the heavy scent in morning’s washing.
Though students twitch their noses when I share
some whisper of advice about their drawings, I am in love
and loved by the one for whom I cook, and we don’t care
if, at 48, our pores, our breath, our kisses reek of curry.
2019
Should Have Gone Before Cooking Curry
Rain’s first storm murmurs.
I put off walking the dog.
He paces, hopeful.
2019
Hotsprings Jesus
Everyone is talking
at the hot springs on Easter.
They are talking about their lives.
No one is talking about Easter.
No, nothing about Jesus at all.
Oh look! Your toenail polish came off!
We’ll repaint them while you sleep.
I’m a light sleeper, he said.
You’re just saying that to deter us.
Her work in interior design.
Feng Shui?
Yes, a little of that. More intuitive.
Her husband drops her son
off at school, not her, no way.
He drives against the grain, wrong lane,
unable to merge into Baseline traffic.
May my son live.
We call them the L towns.
Longmont. Lafayette. Loveland.
Someday they’ll merge into one.
No, the locals are fighting that.
Her husband’s skillful hands.
I design. He builds.
I call him Magic Man.
I work three jobs in Durango,
serve ginger carrot soup to the rich,
live in a trailer.
Grizzly bears in binoculars
charging grandchildren.
Run! he yelled at her. Run!
Run? You should become a stone!
The silence holding the mountains.
Pietà. We hear it.
The water is hot.
We lift ourselves in and out of it.
In and out of it.
We don’t want to listen.
We rise out of the voices.
This is not a baptism.
2019
The San Luis Valley ABCs
Altitude defies melt, clings to snow
beneath a sun perched on a blue beam
cantilevered invisibly into starry
dark. You’ll never,
ever see the stars
fight emptiness like this.
Goddamn! You’ll say.
How have I never seen the galaxy’s milk?
I only now am full denizen of earth.
Just blame city mazes, convenient concrete,
know a lifetime of humid skies,
low clouds can blind, obscure the mind.
Mountains named for blood make a bowl for a
never to be seen sea. Over subterranean
ocean caverns, earth is desert.
Poor, salty, white crust (Google Earth it)
quit acting fertile decades ago, but for green circles.
Recently a local man watched an alpine creek—
sucked underground in the spring—rise again
to greet November 1, the day pivot spigots sleep.
Unbelievable, you’ll say, but listen.
Visit creeks at just the right time.
Watch the water fall and rise and wish.
Xeriscape reacts with little harvest.
You’ll see. Ask Chris Canaly about
zero tolerance for water greed.
2019
Redress
She called and said
she might make
an elopement dress
of my 90s wedding gown:
lots of mauve lace
over a loose mauve slip.
Could I send it? Sure.
Worried it was lost,
I found it in a box
that survived
eighteen moves
and four major
relationships.
Yes, I say.
Make it yours.
You are why
I saved it.
In old wedding
photos, she is the bump
beneath my wide smile.
The marriage didn’t last—
only love and hope for her.
Wise enough to know
her own gathered measure
of those two wings
will carry her further
into lifelong union
than luck or any old dress,
she laughed at superstition
and made her plans
for happiness.
2019
Another Spring Intervention
We threw the fat cat out.
She wouldn’t come when we called,
meowed out of sight.
36 degrees
my phone said by 4 am.
Indoors spoiled, she’d freeze.
I grabbed thrown off clothes,
padded nude through the dark house,
prepared to go out
to fish her from cold.
There she stood, a silhouette
at the sliding door.
Grateful for her smarts,
still clutching thin pajamas,
I watched her slip in:
Shadow meowing
until I filled the small moon
shining in her bowl.
2019