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The water is ok, Jennye says, sprawled on the shore
having not yet touched the water. Everybody looks 
out at the ocean and has a Thought.

I was a mollusk closed and riding foam, I beached 
this inlet’s other side, under rotting piers once 
walkways to the moon. Now smeared 

with hopelessness, blood of fish. Salted inside 
the ruin of Dreamland, piles of sunflower seeds, 
meatless, cleaved

wet and littering the sand. Me and my leonine lover 
in neon amusement light, he brushed my hair behind 
my ear, loose. I knew I was a girl 

I opened then and have been open ever since, pearlless 
purse, powerful with emptiness. Women wade in 
two by two, topless, adorned in chains. 

Beauty, I remember, is trading one truth for another. 

You have a Russian soul,           Polina insists
as we sour cherry                          our afternoon.             
(vishny) frozen, pitted,                   our soviet estrangement. 

Sugared one colander full
of frozen berries                             not plucked from low dark trees 
since our season’s over.                  

Flour over all flat surfaces         
rolling scrap dough,                         Dipping one finger in red water     
we sealed each purse. 

                                                         I die to look at women. 

How many alphabets obliterate pre-lingual self? 
                                                         English vowels fill up my purse 
                                                         with foreignness--

tongue down to knuckle
—new embankment.                        All dykes an island.
                                                         All mountains 
touch under Measureless Darkness. 
have known, have loved,                 have stood in place, turned stone.


                                                         Sainted animal, wounded hoof, living 
in hovel of my companionship.         Resist healing wholly         
                                                          lest in healing we forget. 

Some vareniki float, not all seals, as lovers, survive boiling water.  

“My love, call me Sasha,” Alejandra wrote. 
Never had a lover                              use a name that has power over me.

Polina skims the surface
collects the salvage.
                                                           What was it like to be cared for?     
                                                           Sometimes, knowing 
what won’t be enough is enough. 
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  • HOME
  • WINTER 2022 ISSUE
  • SUBMISSIONS
    • Submission Form
  • ABOUT
  • LITTLE BLACK BOOK
    • A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS
  • SHOP