Whirl Piece

for Lindsay

Pouring our eyes into the barf device
Stars are reciting their wanton errors

So much world is craquelure and rumour
Deducted from the moneyed dimension

Starting to feel a personal moltenness
Ineluctably drawn to the hot tub

Which is our holy watering
Much like a kissing slang

Of tripping into the placeless
Scrying material of our diaries

I remember sweet bay magnolia,
American sycamore, Valley oak

Dancing asteroids into the distance
We’d buckled our lungs to

More than work, a knife, breaking fasts
With tacos and the sun peach

Brandished in lieu of ornament’s
Brilliant granite sampled from Yuba

What to hold as we are in pieces, held
Viridian bath light by the same dream

Goddessing its way to our boyfriends
Coming in waves until we sharpen

A bowl of lysergic augury, now
Supped milky electrolytes

Oscillating loneliness of total
Language in everything

Made plenitude of safety
Left our skins by the kitchen

Maria Sledmere