poems by rachel kellum
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My Mother’s Geraniums
It is safe to write about red geraniums,
their sharp, earthy aroma, and imagine them,
once summer and hummingbirds have passed,
dragged in off the porch, blooming indoors
all winter like my mother’s prayers, so red,
such bright fistfuls of love for her wounded ones,
it is hard not to think of blood, her blood pumping
through all of us, if it could, if she could will it.
in honor of my mother, a week late
stalemate
a rasta once asked
do you know she is your queen?
she is, he agreed
queens cannot compete
with fantasy when sad kings
prefer smoke to light
he stops hearing her
dubs her his enemy’s name
forgets he’s the foil
why have peace talks
about the same war they’ve fought
the last seven years
they wage a battle
who can go without speaking,
eye contact, longest
every small move
through their rooms is a chess game
neither one will win
A Glass Window Is A Glass Window
A few dozen attempts—
bumping her orange breast,
battering fragile grey wings,
tapping tiny claws against
the glass sky of our bedroom
window— brought no success.
We stood on the bed, shoved
our faces against the pane,
knocked, waved our arms,
growled like friendly monsters,
turned on and off track lights
to flash warnings overhead.
Only the latter seemed to give
the robin pause, an inkling
that perhaps an entire world
exists beyond that promise
of sky where other beings live,
move as shadows or gods
beyond her realm, laughing,
shaking their giant heads
at such heartbreaking will.
Hank Knows What
It happens nearly every walk.
Hank dives into woods like a deer
hurdling logs and bramble.
Then the yelps begin. One or two,
or, like today, a litany of shrieks
accompanied by popping cracks
of unseen branches breaking that
sets me running, whistling, yelling,
hatching plans for mountain lions,
mother bears, bull elk, unexpected
yucca knives or cactus patches.
I watch for his emergence up ahead
or behind, but often, I am wrong;
he is waiting on the opposite end
of my terrible anticipation, sitting calmly
on the trail, or running to me full stride,
adrenaline lit, crazy eyed, tongue
lolled, breath ragged, coat dry,
unscathed by Hank knows what.
White Woods
Gentle graupel in the aspen grove
where many trees have also fallen,
bark peeling, drunken leaning
on others, angles reminiscent
of the makeshift forts of youth.
Leo lost his collar on a branch, dodged
my effort to slide it over his face,
whitened with age, ID tag tinkling.
Except for a few sawed off limbs
that otherwise would have interfered
with the trail—one amputee looking oddly
like a gas mask in this time of Covid-19,
one letter off of making me think
of nineteen ravens on a road—
the whole wooden mess a testament
to this town’s peace with entropy,
its loving pact with benign neglect, to let
woods be woods without human
meddling. Lightly pelted from above,
the dogs jogged on, occasionally
looking up at sky, wondering, mouths
open, catching graupel. Our coats,
speckled white, became wet.
We walked on, admiring the creek,
lapping its song here and there.
Thunder rolled. Hank reined in
the tangled thread of his roaming
at my side. Lost in thoughts
of Hank-turned-Christo, weaving
the forest white with yarn spooling off
his black back, I also lost track of Leo.
Liverspotted with his usual fear
of thunder, he disappeared. I called
and called his name, whistled
our whistle to silence and empty trail
for too long. Maybe he was quivering
in a lump under some ponderosa
I had missed while dreaming aspen,
woven yarn, graupel. Five minutes
from the car, my phone rang
inside my pocket. It was Caroline.
“Leo’s here. He showed up shivering.
Lucy is consoling him.” And she was,
when I arrived, with her customary
sniffs and licks, full red-body wag.
He could have landed anywhere,
at any other home. We laughed
at the wonder of dogs, the miracle
of a nose threading space with hope
toward a friendly door from the deep
heart of woods and mountain thunder.
Mueller, Not Kerouac
City Lights Bookstore
I look for Jack on the shelves
Not as books, but air
(He's there)
15 February 2020
When I Think I’m at Peace
Coyote loves digging me.
I follow him to the boneyard
again and again. In the quiet
I caress the bleached skulls
of my favorite mistakes.
I remember eyes moving
in sockets, lips, tongues,
each one very hungry,
headquarters of whole
bodies I thought were mine.
Arms and legs, fingers, toes,
vertebrae, hips all mixed up
as one. Guts are long gone.
He sits at my feet, panting
proudly like a lab who just
dropped a fat, warm goose.
Good boy, I say. This humerus
is for you. He runs away.