By Gabrielle Lessans
1.
Dawn said how can we talk about gender without talking about race? You think how can we talk about earth where our air is easy. Without talking about breathing. Which here does not cost a dime. Where our seas are not yet glazed over in ice keep flexing in current out current in. And. How can we talk about her crevices. Where she’s split apart and hardened into bedrock as red as your lips broke apart from the slim line of sand shore. Yes I’m sure. In such suspension. We are talking with the insteps of our elbows. Taking steps towards. It was a technical crossing. We had to take off our shoes to save our socks from soaking. In her. Without speaking of her wetness. We let toes touch. Climbing. Toward a hollow slice of land. A space for us to lie. Awake in. Electrical fingerprints of some old fool moon.2.
Ricardo said always see a we no matter what you see. You think how many we’s should we be and you see we are sisters. Not twins. And how much more west do we have to get. Do we get to go. South and souther wind me around mama’s hips in your suv. Show me the moss and purple chard of our country. Consciously rationing mango leather. Forgive me my soft denim. Forget about a blanket. Let me tell you something: you never knew me. Here in this traffic jam we get out slow and slower. And slowly more south now of Oakland. Always coming here to leave dyed another color.
3.
And whose job is it to pick a california poppy from the soil up. To lace it through our scalp of curls. To drop it later on the trail in sign for those who are coming to come. To keep coming. Keep picking up stalks of gambleweed. Keep sticking them into the folds of your waistband. Or between pressed pages of a damp book. Our hands born again to poison oak oil. Wipe my finger pads off on your cabbage brush. On our spandex seams. You must conserve your liquid now. You must digest your proteins now. The image opens up now. Like a gentle sitting fog.
4.
We thought about writing a sign for her. As everything is strengthened in threes. But what could really have we said. What that the fallen poppy on the trail hadn’t shown but. A golden trace of our orbit.
Ascend here.
5.
Eunsong said betrayal moves our worlds forward. You point out wormholes through the cavity of stone hedges. You think of the earth’s fat thigh and her stubble of ancient redwood. A trunk fused into her muscle so that. She’s bleeding elementally. You think of your stomach. Pressed up against her cold ground. Hard forehead. And all of our gauze clothes on beneath the orange nylon. Our crannies trembling for dawn. A rockslide makes you sneeze. Two. Three. Four times in a row. Pass the headlamp. Pass. Pass. Pass on sleep. Though we dreamed many dreams. Sayra said what are your dreams. And you thought: a hunchback who compliments your coffee eyes your. Long piano sill legs. And I thought: a felt skirt and a bombing through this waterlogged existence. This distilled sort of gravity. This slow return again. The girl whose words I used and lost again. I always come here looking to lose something. And do. As you use me to practice your lines. We run through your gestures completely. And we do again.6.
Sayra said when we do not process our grief, we replicate. And when the rain came was anything doubled? And what does process have to do with this rupturing. Blisters popped with sharpened bobby pins. Whatever was once inside oozed outside turned downside for tinder. Wrung and hung out to die by the fire. Unburied. Holding washcloths to our dirt ridden pores. Now warm. Now sore. Joints. Panging. In all obscure places. Excuse me as I wish to be water. Please excuse me as I fall into the river right backwards. De-lighting. In the shedding of. This bruised suit. No longer me nor mine this skin. Stay nameless as we compost our ankles. Be silent when I ask: have we turned yet.
Gabrielle Lessans originates from Baltimore but exists now in Colorado, where she writes poetry, teaches yoga, dances in high altitude and attends grad school at Naropa, getting her MFA.
