4 Poems

IV. At the Factory

halos justified
black balloons
do not float up or sink
but as stations of the cross
point us to
glowing phalluses
we are bleeding the mortar
into real life.

Everything is being covered over//with
burnt springs.
There are gods in every crevice.
We are questions of ourselves.
And in between is green, in shadow.

At the Factory is from a series of poems, Ekphrastic Ekstasis.

Chance-Bridge for New Judas

Evaporating words, an ever-stoned linguist,
we are lilypad free & altering screeds
at seven dimes for a swollen hour.
Palimpsest grievingshallow-hop starter.
We are storefront bothered & caddy-cornered,
you with a predilection for plagues & me eyeing rusty
green scaffolds. The kiss, the yes of it all, preplanned.
And tennis balls fooling (not) even dogs. When square-
toed shoes finally make a comeback, what then,
you ask, sullen lilypad fire, evading evaporation.

Leaf

Sometimes laughter twice shatters colonization
crystallization of oarsinto the sun in time
wherever cleats
cleave fallen feathers.

Sallow like a tree.With a house grown up
around it. Leaves.We leave. We follow shattered
like a yellow leaf.

Supplicating sullenly sorority crinkher skirt, she,
sometimes seen in greencranking seasons
through sodden letterpressfolding dreams
between pages.

After twice crucifixionthis aqua age
with a closing stink skunk lucid twirling “I am not
ready for an afterlife,”and shadows.

Equal posing luster lucre. And sorry. In overtime.
Walking from room to room. Seethe shelters and skitters.
Uncovering furniture.I will show you the hidden.

It won’t be long now. I’m scared and it’s the hay fever, the hangover.
Make like a scene and breathe. When we sheltered children and seasons
broke all our reasons.

A Cacophony of Prayers

You told me “Don’t forget to keep the bandage dry.”
A stuffed animal koala bear, lost forever. Trying
to understand injury. It’s meaning.

The women in that region, all wearing cross pendants.

The difficulty when you do not belong.
Faking prayers. The real prayer is unspeakable.

How ecstasy comes near only when she smells misery.

Never understanding the need for families. Both
senses of the word.

Feeling the window in winter. What lies underground,
burnt.

How many real prayers stay buried. A fallowness
that follows us.

The question of whether anyone hears this cacophony,
this cacophony of the

broken bee buzzing.

Carrie Hunter has been published online in the Muse Apprentice Guild, Moria Poetry, Eratio Postmodern Poetry, and in print in SCORE magazine. Work is forthcoming in Furniture Press's PO25¢EM zine series, in Aught, and in Dusie. She received her MFA/MA in Poetics at New College of California and lives in San Francisco.

Contact: ypolita@hotmail.com