On D-Block & Sea and Salt

On D-Block

Behind the wired window       drinking grape juice
women swoon to the gospel  oxidized   like corked wine

On D-Block we write letters   Dear bud of forsythia
Dear love   Dear fetus   Salutations pour from us like wine

We watch each other cradle   our cloth and clothespin
dolls   nurse them with regret  our milk soured like wine

Call us pain-capable unborn children   zygotes
embryos   rosebuds the color of a sweet fat wine

From this white satin altar to the playpens in the kitchens
we thank the grandmas   cellared and aging like wine

We drink sugary milk from the cereal bowls
Sweet like we’re home    intoxicating like wine

We are Sarah cruel   with jealousy   barren & blessed
expectant & howling    bellies bloated with wine

 

Sea and Salt

LA in June          and we were together  the beach was hot and bright and fat with sun
he flirted with the slurping line of foam and sand     On the verge
In over my knees     wet linen skirt clinging     my shoulders burned
I turned around in time to see him  shaking sea water from his hand

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++At lunch licked salt   from my hand
and I drank the tequila drank the shot drank the shot drank the shot
I was hot    and wet      I was thirsty   I drank I kissed him  I grabbed him
from behind                  always behind

I followed him and followed him and followed  saw the sea
through polarized sunglasses    It was white  it was blueblack  it was bright
Another day   hiding my eyes

In the remembered world the sun is golden the water is golden
we are golden         Then sunset   then his lengthening shadow
++++++++++++++++++++++++then a moonless night.
Later my burned   red skin  like a promise          turned golden
I turned to gold   then turned over

The thin white edge of the year      later            winter
Cornered in a corner  boxed in with moving boxes  my legs crossed
and his bony hands   locked around my foot    We drank drank drank
I pretended not to see him          I was already gone  He invited himself

This image he had of us         it was blown-out    white    dated
he left and left   and left it    bathing in   the salt silver
It was blackened bitter   that   thing   he dropped at my feet

I left when he told me to       I didn’t look back        didn’t look back didn’t look
Still he turned  bitter   he blackened   still he turned to salt

Sarah B. Boyle is a poet, mother, and high school teacher. She is the author of the chapbook What’s pink & shiny/what’s dark & hard (Porkbelly Press). Her poems and essays have appeared in VIDA, Menacing Hedge, Entropy, and elsewhere. Following the rapes and assaults that ripped through multiple literary communities this past year, she edited a series of essays for Delirious Hem on rape culture and the poetics of alt lit. Find her online at impolitelines.com.