"I still want you, moon", "crying on new year’s 12:01am"...by Nicole Callräm

I still want you, moon

after Brenda Shaughnessy

I read righteous rage of a poet telling you to fuck off

calling out all the ways you invoke our lust monkey

O, you-- my beloved excuse—I offer up

nasty behavior and every slanted sin in your name

ugly cry during the day-- waive white underthings

drink plum wine until your pearl sweet glow

your pulsating lily resurfaces from primordial broth

roundplump—antigravitational-- one perfect breast

ahh, I’m sorry for how Brenda treated you

my patience for the noon sun is below crimson

(Chad of a star, if you want to talk tools)

you are worth one hundred thousand of him, my kitten

nightblossom-- tipsy silver lilac, opium dust

sticky milkweed at the side of a summer dirt road

even when I can’t see you, moon, I feel you inside

you never condemn me to drown in night’s waters alone

crying on new year’s 12:01 am

as January strips skin from

the new year I count day to

night as the bud’s plumping

advances through my blood

the air gold dipped in graceful

fragrance petals unfurl curves

of skin and your wrists are branches

the boughs bend a brushstroke

blossoms and snow those twin

perfumes crisply entwined

both ephemeral, almost vernal

the naked way you tug at

sleeves to escape the magnet

of this flower opening between us

my winter was a long gravel road

black skies observed

robe of thorns and twine

and you, oh you warm fall of

the most tender snow blanketing

recesses of old pain

of years’ denial

my plum covered

heart

Golden shovel of Otagaki Rengetsu’s “evening plum blossoms”

photograph

I lay sleepless

last night

envious

of a world that held you

before me

it was a picture:

you— on the cusp

of womanhood

eyes dark

starless

midnight

I burned

jealous

your smile

barely hidden by curls

imagining past winds

touching your skin

bygone sunlight kissing

upturned lips

something

fluttered weighty

a moss-covered

ache

I didn’t know how to name

a fire that trembled

taste

of bitter orange

and iron

I finally found relief

dreaming

myself those three pines

stretching behind you

the grass

under your bare feet—

the paper this photograph was printed on

superfluous

you say you have been small for so long

but now feel the entirety

of the spaces you inhabit-- they seem

more --- airy

a cocoon around you

more breath between your words

even the trees stand taller

you say you feel like high tide

I imagine you a California red-sided garter snake

(childhood oddity)

kaleidoscope of turquoise, crimson, azure

dancing double-helix down my brainstem

around-and-around-and-around

each notch of my spine

I will my bones bleached white under a sphalerite desert sun

a more perfect setting for the jewel of you:

all slithering roses and water

you are so young and new in this big space, my love

and I can’t stop staring at the delicate egg-tooth

above those delicious lips

will I too be absorbed

or become vestigial as a dewclaw?

to catch you up--

cause you pain --

when you

wind forward

so sublime

into this

new life

Nicole Callräm (she/her/她) is a nomadic bureaucrat and disciple of existence in all her life-affirming and confusing manifestations. She adores rideshare bikes, red wine, and Osmanthus flowers (preferably a mix of the three...all at once). Nicole has been published in A Shanghai Poetry Zine, Nude Studio, Kissing Dynamite, and Rat's Ass Review. You can find her on Twitter at @YiminNicole.