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"supermoon aubade", "unraveling" & "eucalyptus" by Elle Cantwell



supermoon aubade 


before the iron sky turns amaranth

& the morning star peeks through the blinds 

i watch you sleep/follow the fall and rise

of your breath’s cymbal jazz crash to the drip 

of the corroded faucet/trace the rift

in the sheet falling between our bodies/ 

touch your cheek the path from bottom lip 

to scar to cleft/this wine bed pleasure dome 

simulacrum of us/you are my blind spot

& i free fall for you at will & will

this dirty weekend habit hail

the decrescendo of tonic interludes/

hear birdsong blue notes of thrushes/

their dawn chorus of woe 



unraveling 


this morning a coyote appeared out of nowhere

or in the middle of somewhere between a rock hard

place and the deep blue sea over the hill as the crows fly

not far but a stone’s throw thataway from it all buff and no

bite of the cherry with sugar on top dog in the knock down

drag out fight tooth and claw against the nick of time to run like 

the wind blows the hand that rocks the cradle to the grave rules 

the world on fire where there’s smoke blowing rings running

on empty in vicious circles around the bend over backwards

and forwards and one step up to the plates spinning out

of control freak of nature of the beast of burden of proof is in 

the pudding is in the pie eating grin and bear by the tail

end of the tunnel vision of love to the moon and the lucky star

in the wee small hours of the red sky and isn’t it my night to howl 



eucalyptus 


after the storms subside i feel a mad

urge to shed excess baggage with reckless 

abandon. it has rained for three days straight

& i’m about to shake my puddled roots

to the core. how memory can build

you up for the breaking, grind you ragged—

leave you weakened & shaggy, your limbs thrown 

akimbo, layers peeling slow & perilous, sloughed 

snakeskin dangling in the wreckage. how long

can you nurture a viper in your wearied heartwood 

before you call it a snake in the grass. i’m rough

& ready to break the bough, to bare my better 

wilder version, an incendiary girl, all the rage,

my bark every bit as fierce as my bite.




Elle Cantwell is a graduate of the MFA in Writing program at the University of San Francisco. Her poems have appeared in Ponder Review, December, Welter, Barrelhouse and Roi Fainéant, among other publications. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and is a winner of the Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize. A freelance theatre director and educator, she lives in Santa Monica, California. 

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