Tuesday poem #441 : AM Ringwalt : On Hill Street

 

Your voice: projected knife
in my side

Speak and
blade my feet
off ground 

for an instant—

Ride that shit, baby

*

Your voice, potion of cum-smear,
beer, glass bottles cracked

To behold you, give into?
I bleed, believe

the spirit of flesh
that it should understand all this . . .

O come
disembodied voice
from moving car, 

understand
you: metal, rubber, scum

* 

I throw my body into a cave
in Qumran

I throw my body into
a funeral procession
of roses in virgins’ hands 

Throw my body
into Palomino
gallop 

*

All this: 

O, that Palomino toy,
plastic and played with
in a southern backyard 

At five, I sang to no one,
propelled and was propelled
by fake mammals
mid-flight

*

Is it
my sonic propulsion
disembodied gloat 

Is it honey or amber
blood between my legs?

Am I vortex, nameless?

how should I,
anyone, repeatable,
re-namable nothing 

throw myself into
what is flesh?

 

 

AM Ringwalt is a writer and musician. The author of The Wheel (Spuyten Duyvil, 2021), her work appears in Jacket2, Bennington Review and Washington Square Review. Waiting Song is her most recent record. 

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan