THREE POEMS
By Meg Griffitts
Rorschach in the Rocky Mountains
: a cyclone of scorpions
in my bed before you dragged everything out
next to the fire you couldn’t light before you broke
bodies venom & blood pooling
around my ankles the conjuring of
invulnerability to
tip their tails to poison pictures
empty the new moon rising
on my body
before deflection before I saw you before I wanted you
I offered tangible worship
embodying the terrain
to love me you return to
symbols every time
what do you see here?
a fox with my lips on your wall
a stinger crown tails swiveling towards the sun
my eyes crystallizing into amethysts
I never see what you want
hands pulling my arms back or the suppression of shadows through hips
before there was desire
(to be put in place)
A Question for the Reptile Brain
I miscarry starlings
to the term of widowed butterflies. Seek
sanctuary in white teeth chattering
or the copper pipeline between thighs.
My December jaw builds oceans
out of snow banks. Into a raven’s jaw,
I project shadows. Wings thaw
from bone & each feather hinges to veil
eyes losing gray—miming the evergreen’s
echo: a chandelier
of guilty keys. Unravel the ocean
from sagging words & snow banks.
I know you’ll ask:
I know
of worse things.
Estivation
“Darken your speech”
-Wallace Stevens
heed the turbine pumping underneath
the stream that climbs inside the moonfall
flaring whole on my back
wear bird calls around your neck
they’re giving you instructions
in the pool of a deeryard
in the scattering
tell me the exact shade
of beetles sparkling in silence
or the aurora of light between thighs
if you say it’s the same (what season is this?)
I’ll believe you
let me stay in the glossary
of verdant portraits
the mountains are sauntering to sunset
so we won’t tell time in stencils
of aspens dissolving
instead break me off emerald or jade
until you can read me
until I can pull fists
until I am
like roots
like a landscape
X out my eyes
shake mountain peaks from trees
find other shadows to carve
Meg Griffitts received her MFA from Texas State University where she teaches, although, she calls Aurora, Colorado home. Her work has appeared in Crab Fat, Hypertrophic, The White Stag, BlazeVox, and others. More of her work can be found at megegriffitts.com.
© 2018