we with our sparklers light the path,1 hemmed in2
a golden shovel cento with Frank Ocean,3 et al.
here, amidst images,4 dim
images like birdsong in the morning,5 like the
white dress puddled6 in damp grass.7 light of all lights,8
all I want is to be the river9—another trip through sand and
friction until spark and shining.10 when I fall
asleep, your eyes close.11 Let me open into
the rain,12 shattered on the lawn,13 exiled in you,14
15wandering the wilderness of you—
coming through your very walls.16 The long way to you
is still tied to me,17 our brief animation.18 Oh, my
wind from nowhere19—god
gave me imagination;20 I imagine you, what21 love.22 giving
unbelievable things to each other. in the early morning23 you watched me
wild-haired24 and heaving a kind of fire:25 a pleasure26
in the tongue counting down to thunder,27 a pleasure-
punch, pinch, grope28 of the moon’s marble glow.29 I want the pleasure
of losing it again.30 let me move like a tide come in,31 all pleasure
and all trouble,32 sweetheart. Skies, stars and flowers speak33 of pleasure
like34 you make, love—like the last snow35 melts as it falls36 over
my body.37 circling rivers. the breath. and38 every atom rushes39 into matter.
1 from “Recessional” by Corey Van Landingham
2 from “The Fruit Garden Path” by Amy Lowell
3from “Pink Matter” by Frank Ocean. “Dim the lights and fall into you, you, you / My God, giving me pleasure / Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure / Pleasure over matter” appears here as the last word of every line.
4 from “Blue Hour” by Carolyn Forché
5 from “Given to Rust” by Vievee Francis
6 from “Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes” by Billy Collins
7 from “In a Week” by Hozier
8 from Dracula by Bram Stoker
9 from “Time to be the fine line of light” by Carrie Fountain
10 from “Stones” by Jane Rosenberg LaForge, in Medusa’s Daughter
11 from 100 Love Sonnets, Pablo Neruda
12 from “La Chapelle. 92nd Division. Ted.” by Rita Dove
13 from “Heavy Summer Rain” by Jane Kenyon
14 from “Remembering God after Three Years of Depression” by Derrick Austin
15 from “Virginia Is for Lovers” by Nicole Sealey
16 from “Home” by Tiphanie Yanique
17 from “A Birthday” by W.S. Merwin
18 from “Object Permanence” by Nicole Sealey
19 from “The Kid” by Ai Ogawa
20 from “Remembering God after Three Years of Depression” by Derrick Austin
21 from “Dear, Beloved” by Sumita Chakraborty, Arrow, p. 23
22 from a quote by Mother Teresa
23 from “Sharks in the Rivers” by Ada Limon
24 from “Remembering God after Three Years of Depression” by Derrick Austin
25 from “this kind of fire” by Charles Bukowski
26 from “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” by Lord Byron
27 from “Hum for the Bolt” by Jamaal May
28 from “on not knowing the word for solipsism” by francine j. harris, play dead
29 from “Tonight, in Oakland” by Danez Smith
30 from This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald
31 from “The moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings.” by Donika Kelly
32 from “Lights Out!” by Edward Thomas
33 from “In All Loveliness” by Winifred M Betts
34 from “Page One” by Joannie Strangeland
35 From “You Make Love Like the Last Snow Leopard” by Paige Taggart
36 from “Last Snow” by Heid E. Erdrich, The Mother’s Tongue 2005.
37 from “After Dinner Was Over” by Katie Peterson
38 from “I Sing the Body Electric” by Walt Whitman
39 from “Dark Matter and Dark Energy” by Alicia Ostriker
Adrienne Crezo is an editor and Pushcart-nominated writer of Comanche descent. She lives in Ohio and on Twitter @adriennecrezo. You can find her work in Complete Sentence, HAD, Moist Poetry Journal, and forthcoming elsewhere.