Thrown
Poem by Madelyn Biven; Painting by Julia Cost
Cross lines of a highway makes romance bleed,
our feet become moonlight crimson echo
of the eros between sand and heat (something
fine like crushed sun as if the sun could become
gold dust). I became a dove and dove into
your feather rage of walking mountain edge
and diving took all the time it takes for
the surf to break at the shallow place, the
place gravity evaporates. A child
bites into a pear and the world twirls like
paper planes. Last night it rained a million
screaming fishes, glitter melodies plunge
swimming.
I drew you on my wall with a silver
crayon. Except it wasn’t silver, it
was thunder. And it wasn’t my wrist moving,
it was my flesh. I stand in rain and pour
outside in the way embers coat smoke with
heavy grace the way my hair coils around
my neck the way pinot noir spills and
I’m hungry for mahogany, burgundy,
and oak. Ten staircases fold into themselves
and we begin to fly origami
cranes. I take a fist and dig wet heart from
earth’s black pit. We eat the flesh we are born
from you feel like leather deep in my pockets
dreaming of your summer texture. I attach
myself to you in nouns and open you
with vowels. Down sounds drown down we are spades
in the rose garden waiting to be touched
and puncture fingerprint to cheekbone. Our
minds are glass, cherry pits, baby skin. The
ocean moves into me like clouds push azul
like la la la over nectar seals gashes
on my knees. My mouth is a shell opening
over and over, you are the pearl.
I throw white triangles into your puzzle
maze, drink your stamen fresh water and toss
you like clouds turn into day. There are so
many paths of understanding. My thoughts
are daisies. My knees are cliffs. My body
is a soft pulse. The answers rise and fall
through my eyes as waves. Desire doesn’t
ripple like a petal in the lake. It falls
like eyelashes. Like rain.