POETRY

Three Poems

♦

By PAULA MENDOZA | 27 July 2016

A farm house bed - South coast | c. 1900s
​

​Plain Sight
​

There be no sea monsters here.
Spirits obtain.

Where I am is inevitable furnace.
Elsewhere, whoever

directs stratum, silvers, exoskeletons.
Anywhere I look closer

motes a spiderwork. The lie
in dust or dew. Of half-notes

or grackles on wire.
Sorrows accrue. Mildew means

we live. I have never been afraid
of nothing. Absence makes

sleep, whereas body creases
sheets. Devil down the hall stands

our hair on end. At night
an accomplished whistler

cracks through the drone
that song never written.

Where wordless, lost.
Is this good? Is this disappearing?




​

1:11
​

one liest, to
weave her meal
three says:

no body saw
and we won't
tell. cochineal

crushed shell
red, diest.

widow. riddle.
the luck
of one tangled
in her silks.

it does
take two.

the starved.

the food.




​​

Slant 
​

crooked / fucked

♦

deceive / relive

♦

relief / bereaved

♦

felt / left

♦

adored / read

♦

hard / heart

♦

cold / reeled

♦

liar / sure

♦

promise / facile

♦

love / leave




​

Paula Mendoza's work has appeared in Prelude, Bat City Review, Parcel, Washington Square, and elsewhere. She is the essay editor for The Offing, assistant poetry editor for Newfound | Art and Place, and a reviewer for SCOUT. She lives and writes in Denton, Texas. 

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