White sheets hanging in the yard. This is clearly. a setting. Horror, or love. When did I start seeing everything

Transcription

1 Carolyn Supinka Alien Baby White sheets hanging in the yard. This is clearly a setting. Horror, or love. When did I start seeing everything as scenery? Saw you in the future once, my baby, swaddled in a nest of wires and red buttons. The scientists led me to you, told me look: it s the mothership. My mother was once a baby too and I m still a child. When this thing inside me is done growing I ll have it figured out: anyway, it s me in the yard, hanging sheets because now I know I ll go crazy unless there s something outside of myself to step into, when I need to. Hanging up the bedclothes, bathing my baby, Getting by and getting another life all at the same time.

2 Cat Tongue Clue Checking her fingers for traces of blood she finds them smooth as though something had licked her prints clean a cat with sandpaper tongue at night swallowing the past straight from her fingertips into a cosmic belly and she remembers her grandmother s warning about cats, they will steal your breath and moonlight: never let it fall on your face while sleeping everything happens while she sleeps cats and moonlight and her body leaving her entirely.

3 Germination Mystery Sprout I m turning into a plant. I m not sure what kind yet, but when I brush my hair at night I smell young dandelions, acid stems and petals crisp as baby powder, or the sterile scent of the perfume counter at the mall. Everything mixed together in me. Dormancy My mother was a plant but did not tell us. Holding her hand as we crossed the street, her palms felt cool as wax. Sometimes she lingered. Sometimes we had to pull her down the sidewalk by her coat sleeves, afraid she would take root in the cracks. Seedling Today the sky is gray like dried mint, and the earth is fresh. I m sitting on the edge of my bed. I have just read a book that has made me want to sleep forever, and I feel bug eyed, seeing the world through the bottom of a wine glass, faceted and heady. If I sway forward I ll dive into life, wake anew the next day, and back, I ll close my eyes, take root, and stay.

4 Waiting For It This spring brought new soil to surface, twisted yellow blooms and veiny tendrils calamitous with worms. Everything is surfacing. I am waking up old aches, my mountains purple as bruises, still thin with dreams of sex, ice and white air. You may soon find the dog buried in a snowdrift. The broken down truck. I am hiding tulips as well, in the crook behind my knee. They are sweating into blossom. Things hidden in me, I am overcoming. I can be overbearing. Warmth can be clarifying, a slow burn through the frosted glass. You may look at me and miss the haze of winter, but send your children out to play. There is no bite. I have sent the old ones tumbling. Crisp rot log, unbury the leaves, upend the dam. I hold my breath for months, waiting for it to break.

5 The Mystery of Energy I. Today the sun burned the last of the snow from the hills and I fell asleep at the wheel. The highway wet and shining, asphalt gathering heat like a pitcher winding up. At an emergency pull-off, I pulled off and let the horizon glare dazzle me over the dash. Mesmer. The cars flying past in arcs of whistles and whines and the next rest stop in 10 more miles, the last for a long time. II. The first time we drove down the coast together, it took us six hours because I got us lost. We touched the entire time, hands meeting above the stick. I exclaimed at every sight, and you always looked where I pointed. III. When driving, I need a window open. Without the air rushing past, it feels too much like I m flying silently over the land, a string stuck somewhere deep in my stomach snaring me, drawing me towards the setting sun. The power of motion. I m burning constantly. I have about ten million years left on my mileage.

6 On this drive, I consume meteor debris and gas station trash, dimple space with my body and draw an entourage of smaller planets, circling me to sleep and gossip. I m so hungry. I can feel myself expanding, so bright I need to close my eyes, no energy needed to make me into what I was always meant to become. Carolyn Supinka is a poet, visual artist, and arts manager based in Washington D.C. Her first chapbook, Stray Gods, was a semifinalist for Finishing Line Press New Womens Voices Competition in 2015 and was published in She has attended the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop in 2016 and the Writing Studio at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 2015, and was recently accepted as a resident artist to the Fish Factory Creative Centre residency in Iceland in July Her poetry was nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and she received a Fulbright Scholarship to research modern day spiritual journeys and cultural exchange in Pondicherry, India from She is the co-editor and co-founder of VIATOR, a magazine featuring art and literature on spaces and places around the world. She enjoys every combination of peanut butter and chocolate, and The X-Files.