Treillis de Coeur
I subtracted truth
to found eyes, blurred,
or blurry, a feigned protest.
A sum. Skin covered in fever, she
says she’ll wear that or ink, if you’re really
blue. That’s what mourners do. When it
breaks, you’ll see how perfect it looks
in the light. Abstraction unfolds. The
iris transparent. Dreams well up and
eye risk. A way of thinking in our hemispheric
planes. Holding trust inside, you can lumber around
the eight ball. Fashion me a sight, not past or present.
Proclaim nothingness
from which we flee, chasing a soul’s return.
Promise you won’t swallow sleep like a pill. Let's
collect stray feelings, molding misfits into
dominoes. We can wail with early morning
light, drowning in it and
the desire for tender stones to link names
shared. The very thing that endures.
Wild horses, a
pedestal of volcanic rock, a blackout with eyes
wide open. Leaning toward the horizon.
Caught in waves that carry.
A long stay, home with you.
Angela Stubbs lives in Los Angeles and is a graduate of the Jack Kerouac School at Naropa University. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Upstairs at Duroc, Sleepingfish, Black Warrior Review, Puerto del Sol, Everyday Genius, Bombay Gin, Paper Darts, esque Magazine, elimae, The Nervous Breakdown, and others. She recently completed a collection of hybrid work entitled Try To Remain Hidden and a collection of poetry titled Apostrophic. She is currently working on her 2nd MFA in poetry at the Writers Workshop in Paris with NYU.