Lena Walker
It’s hard to be pink and instinctive day in and day out,
wishing for luck on the head of a rabbit.
I can be greedy. I can be coy.
Something grows in me, fear or tenderness,
either one a strange gestation.
I like myself best when the instrument below my womb
starts to play Schubert, the last three sonatas.
God doesn’t roll off my tongue, so be it, but rather
a scaffold, rather
a broken architecture surrounds me
of faith and of contradictions.
So many tired things with my mouth in it:
century, vehicle, love.
I am searching for new and outrageous obsessions, and let
my body dream without the mind’s interference
as I rub a lemon scent into my neck.
Poem With a Lamp in It
I gathered my taffeta skirt in my arms
and let it drop with practiced, extravagant glee.
I diced pears for a new-order-of-god pie.
I considered the vestigial organs in my body;
semilunar folds in each eye, their encumbrance.
I was sorry and I said out loud "I'm sorry.”
I googled "splenda tycoon,"
brushed my hair with my new hairbrush,
smelled my new good smelling shoes.
I pulled down my pants.
I pulled up my pants.
I studied hermeneutics.
I drew a right-angled triangle
in bright red plasma pen
on a yellow lined legal pad.
My body refused milk.
My body provoked itself,
stepping into its own shadow.
Friends moved away.
I was no longer hungry,
having just eaten a sandwich,
and for this I was glad.
I was tired of goodness.
I got crumbs
all over my jacket.
The mirror was evacuating the room
through its gilded four corners,
and from this world
I could see myself in that world
waving back at myself waving
in this world,
my elegant shoulders,
pink checkered shirt,
the lamp.
It’s that time of night when the vaudeville begins.
I am blue-sueded, deep down irregular.
Like all southern engines I tick and taw.
We are halfway through Adar
and so far nothing spectacular
as the moon shows itself fully.
Do you think you are outside loving? a voice asks.
Heading into evening
my silent daffodil aches.
The insect opens a minuet casket.
Questions are too large.
I am doing what I can to be green.
In fact, the angel of masturbation came and told me
not to be so green all the time!
Lena Walker is a writer and arts educator living in Maryland. Her work has been featured in Solar Journal, SIZL zine, and elsewhere.