Lara Candland I Five Poems

A response to Mark Klett


1.
      view at muley point

      from up here:

      a bone
      dessicated
      by sun
     
      calcified
      clean
      by carrion

  View-at-Muley-Point.gif

 
 
2.

drinking coffee

it’s as if you never laughed                                                  last red
you never--                                                                          coke machine
shook                                                                                   i ever saw
my bottle                                                                              in a gas
of coke                                                                                 station
that day                                                                                around
as a practical joke                                                                nogales
as if forgiveness                                                                   as if you never laughed
reformed & bubbled                                                              laughed
back into its thick                                                                  when the
green sprite glass                                                                 coke
& the soda cap re-                                                                sprayed
pleated itself                                                                         up my nose
around the lip &                                                                    when we sat
the bottle flew                                                                       on a peeling
from my hand                                                                       metal mirage
back into the                                                                         at the bus stop

 

Drinking-Coffee.gif

3.

       saguaro

       they found
our two skeletons
wound up
together
rib caught
on rib
caught on rib rib rib
&
they called us lovers
because they saw
your fist
balled up
in my chest
in the place
my heart had lived--
the simulacrum
of my heart--
or--
you were pulling
my heart out
from between my ribs
or--
it was a double
homicide--
or-- you were
massaging
my worn out muscle
to make it pump again
that one day when i died--
& to make my flesh plump up
again & my skin wet again
        *
       too many skeletons
clacked away on keyboards--
i thought you were as adorable
as a sugar skull
when we met
it’s why
it’s why
*
it is
not
good
for a man
to be alone
so this is why
when the carrion
finished your flesh
i sucked every bone clean
on your bone clean frame--
hot white desert dry.

 

Saguaro.jpg

 
4.

       rattlesnake under tree

       we are two worlds.

       we look
in each others’ mirrors
& see where we will end up:
in this joint,
everyone ends up
laid out cold
on a marble slab.
our temples decay
& falter

 

*

 

our skeletons keep writing
about how the snake
will slither from it’s skin

 

& we will come upon
the discarded skin one day
& lay it in the empty
picnic basket
right after
a beautiful day
lays her body down across
the valley
or leans over the bowl
of pears waiting on the counter
to examine their flush--
blushing red on one side--
the core of fruit
you left on the lawn
last october
shows up again deep in grass
when the snow melts.

 

Rattlesnake-under-tree.gif

 
5.

 

day at point imperial

 

this picture of me. grand canyon. 1975. i am eight. i am browner than a squirrel with a nut in her cheek & my hair is snot green from the chlorine in the pools & my mouth is full of too big, clambering teeth, full of high pine needles & binoculars & stars and the high dark society of night.  me & five siblings, later that week, roll home like six acorns on our father’s open palm,  & the back of the wood-paneled caprice classic station wagon. four & a half pairs of happy sneakers tumbling in the dryer.  the canyon lays out far & wide & behind us.  how many bones & teeth are pressed into her declivities? 

 

i didn’t know then:  how many former bodies it took to build us.

 

Day-at-Point-Imperial.gif

Lara Candland

Lara Candland's collection Alburnum of the Green and Living Tree is available from BlazeVox.  Her second book, the lapidary's nosegay is forthcoming in January of 2018 from the Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University.  She lives in Utah where she teaches creative writing and cooking.