Two Poems by Kristin Lueke
nectarine season
i wake up in a startling turn of events this season
of mornings before you. i didn’t know you
unbelittleable, unterrified & terrifying.
no one thing stays one way. i imagine you young
stumbling, speeding thoughtless toward self-
destruction into another day’s unending appetite,
eating shit & bleeding knees. you were younger once
& so was i. i had a back as strong as anything.
i could bear carelessness, a night on the sofa,
making a point. i could pass a day unthinking.
now there are years & i count them with you,
each one less an era. i try to recall i need
more than i did, take you in hand like a stone fruit
i stole by almost accident once at five am, jetlagged,
uncertain if i should say sorry for the year i spent
quiet. i didn’t want what i had to ask for.
you ask me to be patient. i paint an old bookshelf
& remember my posture, the way blossoms become
one last thing. how some nights now you don’t sleep
even if your mind is good. even still.
there’s a bowl in the kitchen i always keep full.
brain help / love, belly
you scrape another bowl to save you
from grieving your mind, memories
as it is, kept feral on garbage.
i tell you listen. no more advil.
you tell anyone else what a starfish is
or isn’t, how nine russian hikers died
or didn’t, where the ocean’s most
mysterious, why you won’t stand
for horror but can’t resist a spoiler—
here’s one. give me rest or a reason
to turn me against us. you?
cannot stand not knowing.
i stand no chance alone.
Kristin Lueke is a Chicana poet and author of the chapbook (in)different math (Dancing Girl Press, 2013). Her work has been nominated for Best New Poets, Best of the Net and a Pushcart, and published in Sixth Finch, Wildness, Frozen Sea, Maudlin House, HAD, and elsewhere. She writes and reads poems at theanimaleats.com.
