gem
I’d just bought limes
dreaming up autumn skies
at the close of empty party bags
full of the same
leaning a bad haircut
on a broken door
two steps from
hell,
during the longest summer
laughing over sorrow
eating borrowed food,
but like a sister’s glance
a habit unwilling to quit
forgotten organ pipes
brilliant in stained glass
a trade,
two camels in desert haze
where I find my feet,
oceans of sand, soft
like waves of calm light
and falling asleep by campfire
true, trust, truth
words we whisper
no heroes here
no shadow
crosswinds of fall
piano lessons
waking from small
steps we watched
our parents
laugh like children,
passing red drinks
and shaking hands
all dressed up
in glitter and Christmas lights
caught between
your bedroom door,
sweaty from afternoon play
through hard wooden
spoons and swinging
dreams, this is where
you died,
during waking moments
too hard for souls in bodies
too soft to understand
to fading eyes,
staring up through
the fisherman’s hook
and her last song
combed through
salted hair and sunning fish
the last cut
the slip of the rope
the feathered weight
down to depths where
we run in summer sun
late night eating
waves rush out in pillars
of my mouth,
they tickle my lips
harden my slide
on the sharp point
they climb
on beer coasters, I knew
your history
traced with the cement
of my fingerprints
resist
the chains of life
avian bone
you’d never cried
that hard
looking at yourself,
tears warm with red
coals
that summer I lost
my faith in god
fin light as dawning mist
your arm tight around my waist,
I saw my story complete
hard to keep
a cosmos brightest
with its last, turning
your eyes wrinkle
soothing as a shoulder’s sigh
grace reborn.
flannelled lies those nerves
in the dark
of a cab
you touched me
over my leg, down from
the beginning,
we ended
hushed and busy,
the sun reflected
blinding stones of ice
they sit on a blade
of grass
your head in my lap
we chased
clouds to the dark
the sticky justice
smelling your ears two
minutes
from foot
to porcelain
from
fields
snow pecks at their silhouette
no more ashamed
of the dance
the organ,
paper in teeth
hands wink in the air
I still
hold your note, a hook
drunk
with both hands
I see the blue
she knew
a square made bright
by
losing.
Jennifer Kim is from Philadelphia, PA, but recently moved to Portland, OR for the rain and the hairy moss. She tries to make writing poetry a daily habit. On the days she disappoints that intention, she is drafting her first book manuscript drawn from her dissertation research on race and sketch comedy in the U.S. from the 1960s to the 2000s. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Temple University and a B.A. in Sociology with a minor in Black Studies from Swarthmore College.
