Blue curacao umbrella lips unfolding with a flood of gold tequila-soaked tongue.
Laced periwinkle panties wedged between the passenger seat and console heart…pulsating.
Shared maternal trauma:
Yours abandonment,
Mine abuse.
Mein hertz
Amber origami folded into a scarab with ardor wings hiding creased aberrations.
The stutter-start of your tan Toyota Corolla engine leaving frosted hotel parking lots.
4,000 mile proposed rendezvous;
breathless indecision,
the answer:
No
Love letter written on the back of a Germanic map, words ridging peaks of the Black Forest.
Finally visiting your apartment double fisting jewel-toned wine bottles shaped like cats:
Your words sceptered quartz,
one ruby,
one sapphire,
I can’t be with you
The bright neon glow of bare shoulders swaying in blacklight bars with orange ringed blunts.
Onyx waterproof mascara on streaked cheeks pressing a Rorschach test on your chest.
Friday night relapse:
bodies bare and bedridden,
minds mute and marooned.
We can’t be…
A documentary on the alabaster Albatross flying 16,000 kilometers to find one’s mate.
The morning after a date drinking a cup of blackberry hibiscus soaked in leafy apathy.
An attempt at moving
-to a different country
-on while holding
schartz
Periwinkle panties, an amber origami scarab, gemstone cat wine bottles,
a lime green tube of mascara, tea bags of blackberry hibiscus, and words
about you, Albatross,
vermillion bound and indigo pressed
into a white blank page…
Ich Liebe Dich
Ariolimax
I was jaundiced as a new
born. My mother would lay
me in the sun, on windowsill,
a birthday cake not quite
baked. Too much
blood, red cell bilirubin
not breaking down?
She didn’t know
what was wrong with
me. That my body needed
time. I wailed, furious wet
face with snot in frown
folds. What a slimy yellow
body not knowing how to
move through this
earth’s glorious dirt:
a miserable banana
slug. When my liver
learned how to separate
the hard parts of
me, I became rosy
toddler ready to eat
cakey mud in weeds,
lawn watered, grubby fingers
lifting goldenrod heads of
sprinklers trying to catch
snails. Our bodies both
shell-less, sinking into
all this soft earth, both
trying to thrive.
Photo by Paul Carroll on Unsplash.
Larissa Larson
Larissa Larson (she/they) is a queer poet who lives in the Twin Cities and recently received their MFA in Creative Writing. They have served on the editorial board of award-winning literary journals such as Water~Stone Review, Runestone Literary Journal, and The Briar Cliff Review. Larissa works at a used bookstore, explores the many lakes with their partner, and watches scary movies with their cats, Athena and Midas. Their poems have appeared in Gyroscope Review, Welter Online, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Kelp Journal. Find them on Instagram.