by Christine Sloan Stoddard
our mother earth who does not forgive with a gentle heart
when i pull you closer to me across
the red-light intersection, i am trying to smell your
hair. once in a dream someone told me love
was a bit like biting your best friend’s arm off.
i don’t understand. this year, my best friend;
next year in a flurry of accusations, who? i don’t
believe in firsts. but love is the exception.
love is a black box retrieved from the site of a
bad crash. come in closer, press your ear up
against the metal; this is the sound of hands
clasped together. the awkward evening kiss. the
swallowing of spit that no one learns with grace,
the tongue-tying. a wedding knot.
i don’t believe in firsts, but i don’t believe
in dying for someone either. consider the opposite:
consider living. a body can be a plane
if you know where you want to take it. nightfall
is the beginning of prayer.
under the golden arches of a shopping mall
taxi stand, i say take my hand. take my hand,
he says. she says take the hand. take it.
split-lipped and miserable,
we braid each other’s hair like effigies,
through the unsteady hours of the morning
until the police arrive to cuff our teeth.
with diamonds.
finding nemo
i don’t like this / being forced to grow / up without a
proper ceremonial affair / all that prayer and birdsong /
the dead beetles with their shiny teeth / who am i anyway /
i’m not holy / you’re cutting the ridges out of my
spine / bastard / you horror cult / your silver-spoon
cauldron is overflowing / with the blue ache of hunger
/ the universe has never known a crueler contradiction /
though she has tried / synthesizing sadness in glass beakers /
and i have tried / to weave reason into your gray lattice
/ while you talked about the year i was thirteen /
/the word here is disappointment
/ i have run out of blu-rays to eat / you have never tried
to keep anything afloat
/the word here is january / a coming-of-age your children
never asked for / born into an iron cradle / with teeth /
with teeth / with teeth ///////
so i burn down the house we grew up in,
and turn off the radio,
all of god’s angels banging on
our front door, telling us to give you up already.
you lost cause
you broken december
Liya Chang was born in Texas and attended school in Singapore. They write about ambivalence, absence, and hope.
Christine Sloan Stoddard is a Salvadoran-American author and interdisciplinary artist who lives in Brooklyn. Her books include Force Fed, Desert Fox by the Sea, Belladonna Magic, Water for the Cactus Woman, and other titles. She co-edited Her Plumage: An Anthology of Women’s Writings by Quail Bell Magazine for Quail Bell, the art and literary journal she founded. In 2019, she became the first-ever artist-in-residence at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House and earned her MFA from The City College of New York in Manhattan. Later that year, Christine became the artist-in-residence at Heartshare Human Services of New York, where she leads art workshops for adults with disabilities and creates artwork for display. Continuing in the direction of her poetry films like Jaguar in the Cotton Field, Done, and Marine Encounters, Christine has been selected to collaborate with poet Teri Elam for the 2020 Visible Poetry Project. 2020 will mark the release of Christine’s books Naomi & the Reckoning (Finishing Line Press) and Heaven Is A Photograph (CLASH Books).