"And Abraham “And Abraham looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace,” by Adam Mysock; Courtesy of Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans
Two Poems
By Dorianne Laux
The Peach State
You used to bite your lips lying there on my couch
receiving my massages
after long chemistry tutorials
we were classmates and being-touched
was how you touched me back
Your scented lotion thighs my first open-sesame
your snap “Watch It Boy!” you had a boyfriend then
Same as the tour guide at Monticello saying
it was just as likely TJ’s brother was the one
who slept with Sally Hemings
or my saying TJ had Phoenician blood
and was partly Mohammadan
Your brother gave you your nickname you said
thin water jets used to miss you in the shower
I said I loved that part of your body
“They’re called love handles”
you taught me and smiled
Your father a doctor who worked as if he’d live forever
prayed as if he’d die tomorrow
another Mohammadan motto
Benjamin Franklin abided by
Your mother wanted you to marry me after I’d made my bed
I never did kiss you or had known a first kiss
Your sorority perfume and banana Honda
my kneading
what bulged of your breasts while you lay there
cat hair all around us
Listen to Fady Joudah read “The Peach State”
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Bluebonnet
The elliptical staircase is my new revolution
it will lead me to memory muscle memory
without looking at the man on fire
An immolation of unintended emulation
by the powers fisted in me I pronounce us
Pyrrhus and Pyrrha pyre and pyrenoid
Because a return to the dictionary is a return to God
The fluttering nostrils of someone laughing
neighbor a mouth quivering like an arrow
but what kind of arrow and was there a bow
Electric cables split city trees like afros before braiding
and trucks scalp them into arches by the side of the road
saying No growth below this point
But what tree and what bird
And the blossoms had endings
inevitable to be believed
we've been burned by this before
burned but no flame ever touched us
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