Poetry

looking out over

off out
staring over the roads
by the way
i was staring out off
into the distance, looking pushed up against the laundry
so cold
that it felt wet even when rubbed close up into the face & i try every time to remember that just because it’s purple it doesn’t mean it smells like lavender
sit awhile
in the garden by the ivy on the breaking
wall and wonder
what it breathes in twilight
thrown back against the smooth linoleum smearing cooling droplets together against my skin sticking with hot wet water my whole world in a giggly blur
and twilight
sitting down gathering in orange
cold, cold,
gathering up skirts and garters—lace is a half baked dream to me,
he's broken
soaring somewhere else in twilight and yet my hands
looping
back around
at me looping

and wait looping
standing in the kitchen dark, sailor legged and lonely
just
the way i like

Harper S