Art by Rebecca Lu Kiernan

Timewave Zero III

By Rebecca Lu Kiernan

One-Way Trip

He avoids my poems like the plague,
Does not wish to spy himself through me.
He refused to come to launch simulations,
He says I am in denial, in need of counsel.
They are giving us time off now.
Our training is complete.
Countdown clocks glow on billboards, on T.V.

I rouse him to check out a noise in my head.
He stalks the labyrinth of our house with a gun.
He shoots between my memories of platonica
And blood-lust,
Is disarmed by the cradle
Of my trembling legs.

We wake. I don't even need a suitcase.
He is hypnotized by tamarisk tea.
Perfunctory kiss at the cherry door.
He knows I know he knows.
Polite nod from my military escort.
He sees I see he sees.

Mirror World

Do I yearn for the lost world of you?
Only when
The piano punches a flat tone
Which hints at apology,
But evokes silence.
Only when I cannot avoid myself
Between drowning the cactus
And starving the violets.

What happens in the hothouse?
I can only say,
Orchids have faith in such tenderness,
I must turn away.

The Wolves of Mars

Tungsten key in my platinum door, you shiver,
In scant light of Bellatrix through terra-palms.
I lift an empty goblet to my lips,
Rake a hand through my helmet-flattened hair.

You've come with Plan B's scrawled on scrubbed flight plans,
You have my final navigation on computer,
Play my hazardous landing over again
Trying to catch fear. It's never there.

Don't suffocate, float to the hexagon window.
Watch the dance of terrestrial silhouettes.
I sway in your arms, abandoned star
Until I feel your heart has stopped knocking.

Your irises are flecked robin's egg blue.
Your runaway dog is razor grey,
And other crumbs of our old world I hold onto...
Melt down this damn key and forge a silver bullet

Which ends even the loneliness of werewolves,
Wives terraforming Mars into Eden,
Eves tempting Adams with parallel worlds.

Love and Other Poisonings


If I were you, I would surrender to me
The way a starling breaks from its brethren V.
Having seen something glitter in the bog birch.
Slow-feathered, zig-zaggy glide,
Overworked heart
Slicing a Payne's grey, titanium white sky
Hot-breasted, twitch-winged,
Snapping petal from bark.
Shake my branches, leave claw-marks,
Forget you can fly.

If I were you, I could love me,
A burst of light in a bent tree,
A taste of unstrained, violet-streaked honey
Betwixt vampire-orchid, goat-root, killer bee.

Sleepwalk with Me

Here ripples cherry on violet sky
Fluid as the soup of space and time.
Observer trying not to choose sides
Between clinging sun, invading moon.

Heliotrope will replace lilies
By this house new owners paint chartreuse.
The bent cobalt willow will be struck
By lightening, moan all its crippled life.

All of these windows will be stained glass.
Stone lions to guard the lancet door,
Chess figurines, ivory and jade,
A claw-footed couch in black eel-skin.

Darling, it's too much to understand
How this world fractures, what I will be.
Let's call what falls between us a dream.
Bring your old plaid robe, sleepwalk with me.

Reflection

In my gold opera cape pocket
Twitches an egg-scented, dog-faced bat,
His once sharp shriek, an agonized growl,
Undignified, sing-songy long vowel.
Half-eaten butterscotch
Glues shut one sunken eye.
Mold has brazenly begun to grow
On claws that coaxed avalanche from scant snow.
He is deaf, he is blind,
Not the prince that haunts my mind.
I'm a kind soul, ooh, I swear.
I forgot I trapped him there.
I'll hang him from the chandelier
Upside-down with a garbage tie,
Feed him field mice and icy rain,
That he might rise to say goodbye.
Closure, I didn't get it.
The Bite? I don't regret it.
Revenge? I'm quite above it.
Creature? How could I love it?
Lost prince can't soar, he can't walk.
Breath so labored, he can't talk.
He flips in circles like a toy,
A broken one I can't destroy,
For I was lost, he made me laugh,
An empty space in mirror and photograph.

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