poems by rachel kellum
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Half Sister
her job
is witness
let them
have their
roughly happy
tales of
a father
despite her
sad ones
they think
her life
is full
of lies
their stories
allow them
to feel
right righteous
for hiding
his will
(keep it)
confirm he
nor they
ever cared
enough about
his first
forever family
to provide
for their
well- being
both sets
of stories
lie some-
where in
be- tween
are always
have always
been true
all all
loved and
feared no
heard and
learned him
how to
live split
to forgive
2019
Advice for Mothers in One and a Third Haiku
After you’ve watched films
recommended by your son,
don’t talk about them.
You’ll likely be wrong.
2019
Advice in Increments of 17 Syllables
Mothers: don’t make light
of your earnest son’s mistake.
Better to be stone.
Impenetrable.
If you don’t talk about it,
it never happened.
Perhaps silence heals.
It can. Buried deep, alive,
pain speaks other ways.
2019
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