Two Poems by Abi Pollokoff
Image: Derek Abella
particular reminders when prayers for the body aren’t enough
when dusty purple fruits breathe in
the sunsets & smog of their cityscapes: that’s the answer.
branches dangle down splintering poles
& fenceposts & abandoned pianos
into gestures of hurry & freeze
who makes this body what it is
what makes this body what it’s made of
into questions of dusk & breath & billow
& palm & squeeze & pulse & pluck & ooze
with such silhouettes, what gets left when light
enters the room?
the fruits’ bursted juices all over an unsuspecting wrist
all over city corners stretch
hold
hurry
dusky purple veins branch a map of smoke & defiance
throats in yellow light
flick away dust from the skin you’ve seen before
unbidden orbits: the body wrapped & unwrapped
the body frozen in its glassy musics
it’s not a question of streets or piano keys
it’s not a question to fill veins with tendrils of carved bark
& wrapped & unwrapped
when the body’s wrappings strip themselves into collage of
gummed muscle marrowly melting into
pinking bone here’s a question:
is the body swallowed in fabric to hide
or to hold it
along the fenceline
the headiness of plums
in shadow in
recline
lean into it
intertwine branches with every last shadow
every particle of smog
watch the body hurry—
watch the body—
on speech
the pebbles at the beach’s bottom drown & are rebreathed
each tide like the human body’s slipping sleepward & jolting back
& back: a rest that’s never true & a wake that’s all gasp
& release. we don’t remember
how to catch breath & shape it bubble-soft & trailing
into something to care for, to ear after
instead, airbound, we gulp quickly giddy at the glottal
teeth tense stifling in breath
as lungs inflate exhale
a flight like a gull on the updraft is this exhilaration?
suck & gasp lips pressed to windburst
the gall of it
trapping what’s invisible into mouthshape tongue swaddled tight
against billow & blessing & we don’t remember
we don’t remember
our primary tasks as the pebbles sink into sand & seaswoon
we hang our jaws open by the molar in wait
the air here hangs
just as lightless in our caves & cavities tiding itself
into cheeks & out it doesn’t want to be swallowed
& it doesn’t want to be let go
& it fills our mouths with its cacophonies
echo & original sound
sometimes
we kick the pebbles at the beach’s bottom but only
when sun’s alchemy
turns them silvered & slivering we’re afraid
of letting them slip into nightness & we’re afraid of them
bleakdamp sifting speech across our surfaces
they too closely resemble
our own clammy souls slowly
overcome
with tide
it’s brittle in our mouths
this dusty light
our cheeks
full of pebble
& aglow
Abi Pollokoff is the author of night myths • • before the body (Red Hen Press). A recipient of the Anselle M. Larson/Academy of American Poets Prize, her work has been featured most recently in The Pinch, TriQuarterly, and Radar, where she was a finalist for the Coniston Prize. She is the managing editor for Poetry NW Editions and works in publishing. Find her at abipollokoff.com.
