Stargazing at Noon
Page 5
THE OCEAN SWALLOWED THE CITY
barreled in like a plague
drowned every street
in love & lunacy
& when it came to an end
I could no longer remember
which I had been
the poison or the tonic
the metropolis or the sea
WHAT IS SHE?
What mile were you on when you
stopped to admire the long-stemmed
roses strewn about the beach?
How long were you standing there
that the tide came in & circled
your ankles, sunk your feet?
Was it then that you wondered,
What is she? The sand or the sea.
The bone white of those petals,
the ocean foam, the way every
coastal city feels like home.
When you begged your legs to leave
they asked, What for? She’s the
reason we won’t run anymore.
OR MAYBE I AM THE MOON
My only purpose—
to make the tides
rise & fall
in you.
NON-EXHUMABLE
There are some things we don’t talk about, memories sealed in tiny metal coffins marked “non-exhumable.” We cut the utilities, board up the windows of our hearts, condemn the whole goddamn structure.
I was with my father when he got the phone call that you kissed the creator goodnight for the last time. I saw his face so wet with pain I could have hydroplaned over his eyes.
My father doesn’t cry.
I’ve moved on from asking why because I’ve been through this enough times to know by now that it’s the one question I’ll never have an answer to. But maybe you can help me with these:
Where did your soul go the night it fled from the war-torn country of your body like a refugee?
When will my father give up the guilt he’s been coveting? The ghosts? The “Get Out of Jail Frees?”
How do I bury you six feet in my frame when I only stand 5’9”?
A FOOTNOTE ABOUT HOPE1
* * *
1 And how it holds us, still it holds us still, it holds.
THE SUMMER I OUTLIVED SYLVIA
was a swarm of bees a droning in my throat
a poem I could not purge so I swallowed the sting.
June was an oven stuck on preheat, did not come with instructions. Straggler cicadas emerged, snapping their wings. Who welcomed them? A woman with two heads, a month pregnant with neglect. Ruby-bellied fruit fell from their stems; the strawberry moon overripened.
July softened into mud. Foundations sunk. Death came to our own backyard to claim the operator of one riding lawnmower sputtering around the lake, which slid down the embankment and flipped, pinning man beneath machine. He drowned in broad daylight. The neighbors buzzed around outside.
August brought its own miseries. We discovered widows nesting in the back room, forgot how to make a metaphor, could not look at a surface without also considering its rupturing. Even the ocean’s skin, darkly glittering, was just that, skin. Something you could pierce or shed. You never knew what would slash through that blue impasto, that knifed gloss. A leviathan. A body. A fin.
By September there was only the gash in the earth, a mason jar full of larva shells, the random silken sandspur—tokens of those halcyon hauntings.
The summer I outlived Sylvia
was all rain and death a thunderstorm quivering cobwebs each lightning bolt an execution flashing against the wet
wad of words an egg sac a swollen hourglass
of venom of honey of wing.
OCTOBER COMES
& I am the pale-yellow husk
of the person I once was.
GRATITUDE
For you, dear reader.
For giving my words a home.
Index
A FOOTNOTE ABOUT HOPE
A GIRL, A GHOST
A LOVE LIKE MINE
ANATOMICAL HEARTS
ANTIQUES & ODDITIES
APEX PREDATOR
A VICTOR, A VECTOR
BLOOD ORANGE & PLUM WASH
BOTTLE ROCKETS
CANOPIC JARS
CERULEAN
CHARIOT THUNDER
COURAGE & A COMPASS
CRACKED WIND
DANDELION CLOCKS
DEAR MOM
DEPRESSION
EMPIRES
FINE IN THE FIFTIES SENSE
FIVE MONTHS AGO
FROM SPACE ALL OUR CITIES LOOK LIKE STARS
GENTLE WAKES, VIOLENT WAVES
GRATITUDE
HARBOR TOWNS
HELIOTROPIC
HELIUM
HIRAETH
HOLD STILL
HOW TO TELL A STORM IS COMING
I AM LOOKING FOR MY MOTHER
I’M SORRY, OKAY?
INVINCIBLE
I’VE KEPT QUIET FOR SO LONG
I WANT, I WANT, I WANT
LET’S TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME
LIKE RAIN ON WARM PAVEMENT
LITTLE LION, ROAMING THE COLD GOLDEN
LIVE WIRES
LONG DAYS, MEANINGLESS NIGHTS
LOSING YOU IN HUES
LOVE & LUNACY
LOVE YOU BETTER
LUCKY NUMBERS
MIDAS TOUCHED THE MOUNTAINS
MONET BLUR
MULTIVERSE
NON-EXHUMABLE
NORTHERN LIGHTS
OCTOBER COMES
OLD MAPS
ON LOVE & FUTURISM
OR MAYBE I AM THE MOON
PAMUKKALE
PAPER DOLLS
PEANUT BUTTER & MANIC SANDWICHES
PHILIPPIANS 2:14-15
POBLANOS
POP ROCKS & SODA POP
PROPHECY
PURPLE AVENS & PRAIRIE SMOKE
REDWOODS
SANDSTORMS & MONSOONS
SEISMIC ACTIVITY
SINGULARITIES
SLEEPING DRAGON
SLOW AS SUMMER
SLOW DRAG
SMALL STEPS, GIANT LEAPS
SONGS WITH OUR EYES CLOSED
SPACE & SEA, YOU & ME
SPACESHIPS
STANDING ON SUNKEN CITIES
STARGAZING
STARGAZING AT NOON
STRAWBERRY FIELDS & FADED FOREVERS
TELL ME HOW THE WORLD ENDS
THE BOY CRYING WOLF
THE BRIGHTEST THING
THE EINSTEIN-ROSEN BRIDGE
THE FERMATA
THE HORIZON IS NOT A LINE
THE LOBOTOMY
THE MARTIAN
THERE IS NOTHING TO SEE HERE
THE RIFT
THE SUMMER I OUTLIVED SYLVIA
THE TIME TRAVELER’S GUIDE TO PLANNING FUNERALS
THE TOPOGRAPHY OF YOUR BODY
THE WRAITH
TILTED HALO, CROOKED CROWN
TWO TRUTHS, ONE LIE
VIOLETS & VAGUERIES
WARMER WHERE YOU ARE
WEATHERVANES & PAPER PLANES
WHAT IS SHE?
WILD THING
WILTING SUNS
WOUNDS LIKE MINE
YOU CAN’T BLAME THE RAIN
YOU HUNG YOUR HEAD; I HELD MY TONGUE
YOU, YOU, YOU
copyright © 2019 by Amanda Torroni. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.
Andrews McMeel Publis
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a division of Andrews McMeel Universal
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www.andrewsmcmeel.com
ISBN: 978-1-5248-5206-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018965805
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