17
33
08
02
FF
03
16
CC
16

when the gold rush?

for louise mathias

left on the gas
stove lights
bank on flame
feeding itself
right for one
time I glued
hubcaps to meaning
means to assess
our rate of decline
as blue fabric
unraveling into Noah’s
wind if lies twist
tight enough
their ball turns to gold
teeth. if fed air
they            the blast
pattern another bent
ring each bender
we’re growing closer
to the cracked dirt
below sea level
& always thirsty.
foam rises up
out of me at the jump
cut the peak where the
insurgency falls
down the stairs your
dry branches split
each twilight narcotic splits
like the moment
you start to keep
a secret let’s not split
hairs between
footwork & fretwork
war is a feed
we sunk 700 layers
through strangers’
strangest dream cinder
blocks unravel the chiffon
around the wound our
contrition more cachectic
than Catholic our
bodies turned blade
spite the tenderized
strings attached to
wonder valley in
those years I couldn’t…
oh you know
what I mean?
almost like when… how the file
cabinets bloomed
& you nod
& keep chewing.

 

Nina Puro is a poet, human, & queer weirdo whose writing is in The Atlas Review, Guernica, the PEN Poetry Series, & others. A member of the Belladonna* Collaborative; author of two chapbooks (Argos Books and dancing girl press); recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Deming Fund, & Syracuse University (MFA, 2012), Nina cries and works in Brooklyn.