Lisa Cole
3 poems
**
Little Vixen, Little Star
Body as bomb shelter
................heart ticking in a vice.
........Days of 25 hours—days of stone—
................days stretching long like vines across a precipice.
................................An Indian summer blooming like a bruise.
Then, she finally knew:
........................To be graceful is not to run,
........................................but to be rooted.
**
Letter to the Invisible Man
I’m sitting here in my pajamas getting drunk and it’s only 10:09 in the morning. From this angle, the wine in the glass looks like blood.
Look at me darling. This is how morbid I have become! Before you, the wine I drank was only wine. Now everything I see is always something else:
A fist is a coiled rope; a tear is an ice cube; eyes are batteries. And you?
You’re a vending machine. I put a quarter in the rusty slot, and I hear,
“Wait! You are only a borrowed Messiah.”
**
It’s Raining, and I’m Writing You This Letter
My Love, I'm sitting on my front lawn in this old plastic chair, reading these poems and my white pants are stained with coffee. The clouds are as malicious as police officers in traffic, but I don't care. I don't know why I’m out here. Everything is wet: my hair my hands, my face. I don’t know anymore if I’m crying, but I'm reading these poems anyway. The pages are wet and curling up, but I keep on reading. One of these poems says that after your heart breaks you just get more adventurous, I wish someone could explain this to me. What does that mean? This is how broken my heart is. I hardly understand anything anymore.
In this line, he says that all he wants is “boundless love.” Christ isn’t that what we all want? I could stay in Arizona all my life because what’s the point? The sky’ll still be blue somewhere else. I’ll still be looking for someone to share a coke with me or hail cabs with, or run the bath and spill water everywhere.
I don’t think I want to live here anymore; I think I should leave. I wonder what you’ll think when I’m gone. When I go back inside, no one will greet me and the burner on the stove will be turned off. Maybe I’ll climb out the window. Maybe it won’t be raining anymore.
**
return to sawbuck 4.2
**
Lisa Cole is a Tucson, Arizona native and received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Arizona in 2009. Her writing has appeared in Nimble, Slow Trains, Persona, and The Albion Review.
**
Little Vixen, Little Star
Body as bomb shelter
................heart ticking in a vice.
........Days of 25 hours—days of stone—
................days stretching long like vines across a precipice.
................................An Indian summer blooming like a bruise.
Then, she finally knew:
........................To be graceful is not to run,
........................................but to be rooted.
**
Letter to the Invisible Man
I’m sitting here in my pajamas getting drunk and it’s only 10:09 in the morning. From this angle, the wine in the glass looks like blood.
Look at me darling. This is how morbid I have become! Before you, the wine I drank was only wine. Now everything I see is always something else:
A fist is a coiled rope; a tear is an ice cube; eyes are batteries. And you?
You’re a vending machine. I put a quarter in the rusty slot, and I hear,
“Wait! You are only a borrowed Messiah.”
**
It’s Raining, and I’m Writing You This Letter
My Love, I'm sitting on my front lawn in this old plastic chair, reading these poems and my white pants are stained with coffee. The clouds are as malicious as police officers in traffic, but I don't care. I don't know why I’m out here. Everything is wet: my hair my hands, my face. I don’t know anymore if I’m crying, but I'm reading these poems anyway. The pages are wet and curling up, but I keep on reading. One of these poems says that after your heart breaks you just get more adventurous, I wish someone could explain this to me. What does that mean? This is how broken my heart is. I hardly understand anything anymore.
In this line, he says that all he wants is “boundless love.” Christ isn’t that what we all want? I could stay in Arizona all my life because what’s the point? The sky’ll still be blue somewhere else. I’ll still be looking for someone to share a coke with me or hail cabs with, or run the bath and spill water everywhere.
I don’t think I want to live here anymore; I think I should leave. I wonder what you’ll think when I’m gone. When I go back inside, no one will greet me and the burner on the stove will be turned off. Maybe I’ll climb out the window. Maybe it won’t be raining anymore.
**
return to sawbuck 4.2
**
Lisa Cole is a Tucson, Arizona native and received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Arizona in 2009. Her writing has appeared in Nimble, Slow Trains, Persona, and The Albion Review.
Labels: 4.2, lisa cole, summer 2010
