A Poem by Jolie Smith
Here and in Other Worlds
1.
My girlfriend calls me a pus lover
when I show her the zit forming
under my lower lip. I bite it
to show her I love it, I love it.
I roll a sharp pencil in my fingers
to prove I love myself, I love when I am a boy.
I don’t tell her about the smoke
outside my window or the dead bird I poked
on the sidewalk last week. It’s best not to know
the birds are dying, it’s best not to know
that I wanted to steal the feather
off a dead raven and stick it in my pocket.
It’s best not to know that a kid just told me
we’re in between a Children’s Environmental Crisis,
Right between it, he said. And then took off
to his computer to play Minecraft with his friends. All his friends
sticking their cheeto fingers into thousands of worlds.
2.
A man is steering a baby through the pouring rain saying, No No No
There are rings forming beneath his breath. My back is carved in U shape, his curving
like an L. We’re both skating on our own existence. I don’t know his problems,
I know mine, which are hard to count because it’s like painting
a house with twelve rooms. Today I asked a man in the grocery store
where I could find chapstick and he walked me to the chopsticks.
I blush easily but this time I smiled thinking of those two words stacked
so nicely in our minds and how both things touch lips
eventually and that, in the end, two strangers laughed.
3.
The dirty city is dark now. Guitars lean in corners,
silhouettes hover over the garbage of yesterday.
I keep saying no when my roommate’s ask if I want to go out,
I type that into google. I don’t learn anything new
so I stick cold butter on a piece of bread
and think of my girlfriend’s brown curls. I left all my friends
to live near the mountains; I keep saying no when offered help,
I wonder if whiskey would help—shiny liquid in yellow mug, warmed- up
honey stirred into the whole golden lot. Michael loves it like that.
Skeptical bikers cross the street while men shout about nothing
I flinch when they say fuck yet it rolls off my tongue so well,
golden words flung into the alarming abyss,
under Mt. Hood, under the river skies of other days.
4.
Back on the East side it’s after midnight and the moon is round.
In Memphis, she is sleeping with rounds of tangerine,
mango & banana. My strands of pastel legs
hit the edge of the bed while people outside
scrape the pavement with their shoes and scream
Girl, you make the world go round! Can they see the moon?
The sweet sound of her curls in the pillow mewling for the mango,
the soft morning, the piles of clothes in fifty piles? The darkness is nice
if you play with it. Try! Push your fingers into the rivers of tar
running circles around our feet, our legs, the big cosmos
melting into the sound of now and other worlds.
Jolie Smith (she/they) is a writer, sister, friend, tsunami-footage watcher, mind wanderer, and, once in a while, a psychic. She isn’t great at math (other than algebra) but she can make bird calls using her hands and has generally okay balance. Most of all she loves people and their minds and will spend time vehemently invested in anything you show her--including (but not limited to) books, films, homemade comics, and self-produced music videos.