POETRY - ISSUE FIVE
Outliving
CAMILLE RANKINE
* * *
It’s heady here under the table,
too dusty to ring the dinner bell, too heavy
to open the window and let birds
breeze in, wide and ready. Let’s drink
to transients. Let’s
keep the guests believing
in ghosts and we’ll keep
busy waltzing, wanting
to be sliced into.
Is there anyone here
bedding the master, anyone hungry
as the night must be, lonely as Tuesday?
I’ve been dirigible,
changing hands, forgetting the milk.
Void and taut as a canvas ever since.
too dusty to ring the dinner bell, too heavy
to open the window and let birds
breeze in, wide and ready. Let’s drink
to transients. Let’s
keep the guests believing
in ghosts and we’ll keep
busy waltzing, wanting
to be sliced into.
Is there anyone here
bedding the master, anyone hungry
as the night must be, lonely as Tuesday?
I’ve been dirigible,
changing hands, forgetting the milk.
Void and taut as a canvas ever since.
Symptoms of Aftermath
* * *
Tonight, I dream the dead and how they want
me. They scale the walls. They tear a skylight
to the sky. I, requiring life, start a fire
and burn them all up. Lady Luck arrives late, we drive our bodies
to the dump. Afraid in the dark, I shake her
by the shoulders. Where will the survivors congregate?
How will we have our eggs? We ration out our breath
in the bomb shelter. Luck doesn’t make it. There was nothing
anyone could have done. When I am saved, a slim nurse
leans out of the white light. I need
to hear your voice, sweetheart. I see
my escape. I walk into the water.
The sky is blue like the ocean,
which is blue like the sky.
me. They scale the walls. They tear a skylight
to the sky. I, requiring life, start a fire
and burn them all up. Lady Luck arrives late, we drive our bodies
to the dump. Afraid in the dark, I shake her
by the shoulders. Where will the survivors congregate?
How will we have our eggs? We ration out our breath
in the bomb shelter. Luck doesn’t make it. There was nothing
anyone could have done. When I am saved, a slim nurse
leans out of the white light. I need
to hear your voice, sweetheart. I see
my escape. I walk into the water.
The sky is blue like the ocean,
which is blue like the sky.
Camille Rankine’s first book of poetry, Incorrect Merciful Impulses, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press. She is the author of the chapbook Slow Dance with Trip Wire, selected by Cornelius Eady for the Poetry Society of America's 2010 New York Chapbook Fellowship, and the recipient of a 2010 "Discovery"/Boston Review Poetry Prize. She works as Assistant Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Manhattanville College and lives in New York City.
