Poetry
Settle(d)
by Leia K. Bradley
by Leia K. Bradley
I watch my tall, tawny love exit the tent,
kissing me good morning like swatting a mosquito.
I perch on my haunches, taking mortar and pestle to lavender sprigs.
I add the lilac powder to my oatmeal, add berries, cinnamon for sultry sweet
Offer some to the moon, to the coyotes, wherever they are. Hopefully somewhere with shade.
I cook her thick-cut bacon in the cast iron, even though I don’t eat meat.
She didn’t sleep well, she says, You always wake me up.
I was dreaming of running on all fours, instinct like lupine lore,
dreamt of eating blueberries in a sandstorm.
I don’t tell her these things
just apologize instead. She nods.
I watch the thin line of her lips sipping tea in summer heat.
She won’t eat blueberries because they stain the teeth.
I don’t remember why I started loving her.
I bathe her in the stream. I let her touch me by the riverbed.
She says she feels closest to me when I’m five fingers deep
And I answer with each of them, one by one.
When the sun lilts in to sear across the west, I draw our initials in the red dirt.
She toes a heart around them with her hiking boot.
Is love supposed to feel so routine? she asks.
I kneel to touch the settled dust, smear it across her forehead with my thumb,
press my lips there.
I gather pine seeds in the canyon’s curve,
walk back to the river alone, skinnydip in the cool rush of watery rust.
The coyotes howl high at moonrise, and I answer back. No, it isn’t supposed to feel
like nothing. Some obligatory habit.
But the years between us are heavy, ground hard, months poured and packed
days into decades like dust into sandstone.
I drop my head beneath the water’s edge, open my eyes to the blur of liquid earth.
I walk back to the campsite in a white sundress, dripping wet, dust clinging to soles.
Her eyes make the distance. Wordless,
she pours herself a hot tea in ninety-eight degrees.
Neither of us will trade solid comfort for fatelessly afloat,
directionless.
Neither of us will bother to leave.
kissing me good morning like swatting a mosquito.
I perch on my haunches, taking mortar and pestle to lavender sprigs.
I add the lilac powder to my oatmeal, add berries, cinnamon for sultry sweet
Offer some to the moon, to the coyotes, wherever they are. Hopefully somewhere with shade.
I cook her thick-cut bacon in the cast iron, even though I don’t eat meat.
She didn’t sleep well, she says, You always wake me up.
I was dreaming of running on all fours, instinct like lupine lore,
dreamt of eating blueberries in a sandstorm.
I don’t tell her these things
just apologize instead. She nods.
I watch the thin line of her lips sipping tea in summer heat.
She won’t eat blueberries because they stain the teeth.
I don’t remember why I started loving her.
I bathe her in the stream. I let her touch me by the riverbed.
She says she feels closest to me when I’m five fingers deep
And I answer with each of them, one by one.
When the sun lilts in to sear across the west, I draw our initials in the red dirt.
She toes a heart around them with her hiking boot.
Is love supposed to feel so routine? she asks.
I kneel to touch the settled dust, smear it across her forehead with my thumb,
press my lips there.
I gather pine seeds in the canyon’s curve,
walk back to the river alone, skinnydip in the cool rush of watery rust.
The coyotes howl high at moonrise, and I answer back. No, it isn’t supposed to feel
like nothing. Some obligatory habit.
But the years between us are heavy, ground hard, months poured and packed
days into decades like dust into sandstone.
I drop my head beneath the water’s edge, open my eyes to the blur of liquid earth.
I walk back to the campsite in a white sundress, dripping wet, dust clinging to soles.
Her eyes make the distance. Wordless,
she pours herself a hot tea in ninety-eight degrees.
Neither of us will trade solid comfort for fatelessly afloat,
directionless.
Neither of us will bother to leave.
About the Author:
|
Leia K. Bradley (she/they) is a Southern born, Brooklyn based writer and lesbian performance artist, as well as an MFA Poetry candidate at Columbia University. She has work in Poetry Project, Ubiquitous, English in Texas, Tarot Literary, Versification, Wrongdoing Magazine, and more. She can be found dancing through candlelit speakeasies or climbing barefoot up a magnolia tree with a tattered copy of Stone Butch Blues tucked into her dress. After climbing out from the coffin of her first divorce, she is accepting love and lust letters through her twitter @LeiaKBradley. |
