#cora finch

golden rain trees

are pink in the fall. from earth we only ever see one side of the moon. some things are not what they appear to be and others do not appear at all. i still don’t know which of these you were or why it’s always warmer when it snows. i don’t know if water touches you the same way it touches me— like it wants to be touched back. i only know it’s december and i keep getting caught in the rain.

Give me the moon

Throw a lasso around it. Pull it down. I’ll take it— if it means I can see the world through your eyes.

Give me the moon. Slice of midnight on a silver platter. Handful of wishes for my waning heart.

Give me the moon, and I will swallow it whole. Let it dissolve

the hunger out me, and everything— everything I touch will turn into light. And we can dance in it.

Don’t stop talking. Don’t kiss me. (Not yet.) Tonight, I want the moon.

Give me the moon and your wonderful little life. I want that too.

I can be tender with sharp things. I can be fragile without breaking.

Give me the moon. I want my dreams

to be soft again.

you only think of me after midnight

the sky plums. smoke blows off the roof of your mouth. it spreads like a hunger pain and tastes like something you almost said. it’s just you and a self-inflicted wound. you and your desire to smother a half-decent heart with silence. you and the touch of a vacant room that could have held us both.

you think of me. my trusting eyes. my willowy voice. sweet lavender skin. you light another cigarette and let it burn.

I believe in pink — after Audrey Hepburn

Pink, as in protest. Pink like a pussy hat, circa 2017. Pink blows the whistle. Pink lights a candle. Writes poetry. Says their names. Remembers Breonna’s soft heart and Gianna’s unicorn and Liam’s fever-bitten, five-year-old cheeks. Pink as ballet slippers as a form of resistance. Pink as Midwestern marrow. The kind that doesn’t shy away from ice and bitter cold. Pink as a fetal pig. Pink as newborn skin, freshly thrust from the womb. Pink as a lung. A tongue. A scream. Pink puts pressure on the wound. Wants to know What did you do?

Pink as a Minnesota sunrise. Pink as snow on pavement and the site of an early grave. Pink stands at the front lines, armed with a smart phone and a tattoo that reads Love thy neighbor. Pink as the eye of the goddamn storm. Burns sharp as the light of a northern star. As a woman in a pink coat who refuses to look away.

. after Amber Hope

you in the blue light

of morning, bare chest, full breath, half covered in yesterday’s stardust. tell me, what’s it like to wake up this beautiful? to make the world want to give itself over to you. in blue. sweetheart, all this blue is for you. the whole damned sky. the irises and the pillars of spruce. the sea glass shards and the rarest of shells. robin eggs, jewelberry, sapphires—all for you. globes of thistle and mountains of hydrangea. winter and the first bite of frost. pale moonlight and the sound of blood wetting my veins. the sweat of last night’s rainfall on our skin. this heart. undressed for you. this body too. favorite faded jeans and forget-me-not crop top. gone for you. my legs, lover. two long rivers running for you. my summer mouth and the hot flicker of a tongue left burning for you. desert pink lungs, drowning in a teaspoon of water for you, darling, in the blue light of morning— can you feel it? all this blue is for you.

Myopia

I am up with the moon and the stars. You keep looking at the ceiling.

. after Going Back by Roger Mitchell

I wanted to write them a poem tonight but all I could think of

was one night in August, one morning in June and how you left me standing, cold silence cracking across my cheek like the back of a father’s hand, the kind of cold that blooms into heat and spreads like wildfire, I mean wildflowers, when they have a chance to take root inside. I think of the mercy of trees and what it was like for you to be a careless boy holding a small bird with a broken wing and the aftertaste of empty words and later the breakfast I can’t eat. Cuties, sweet pastry, strong coffee, little spoons that nest perfectly inside bigger spoons and sugar spilling like snow. Frosted windows, boiling water, and we belong together written in steam and cooking without a recipe and road trips without maps and taking off our clothes in the back seats of cars.

I hate going back. I think, in a way, going back is like driving over a patch of ice. Sudden, slippery, dangerous. So easy to spin out once you’re in it. I don’t want to lose control like that again. Without a soft place to land.

EYE CONTACT

[and other forms of self-sabotage]

. Lingered too long in the mirror of your gaze

. Unflinching let your hands burn familiar with the taste of my skin

. Fed your crooked mouth in porchlight and starlight on a bridge at sunset

. and then

. One night I left my heart open

and you walked right through