Three Poems by Emily Kingery

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Retrospective

 
I imagine the children I will never have
to keep alive. I would be a good mother,

my exes imagined. Men who snapped
their fingers on the elastic of bras and

turned into fathers: men who fit elastic 
bows to the soft, bald heads of their

daughters, now. I imagine the retailers 
they will pay to hold guns to their ears 

in stores of costume jewels. The silver
of the tea they will arrange, the songs

of shimmering stars too young for them 
to recognize. How they will die of thirst

sipping air from cups long drained. 
It was impossible to warn the men

who loved me. When their lips met
red cups made for children unaware

they are children, still, they drank
like hummingbirds. Gorgeous birds,

turning the engines of their hearts
so fast I imagined the spit of gravel

under tires. I imagined tiny skulls
indistinguishable from stones.

 *

Violence

The maples shook. It was going to snow 
but not for weeks. Each green-gold leaf 

dropped to asphalt: the span of a hand, 
your hand, curled over change, uncurling 

for a palm of candy or teeth. The leaves 
flocked our nation, colored it with sun

and money and blood. You asked me
how to grip a snow globe; the answer

was any way. You tentacled the glass 
to force the snow awake. You promised,

I’m not violent, words you knew were 
glitter in water, holding me eye-level 

then upside-down. Your fingers spread
evenly, like men in an organized raid.

*  

Damage Control

America, my mole, carnivore and blind, I 
pluck up ears of corn to dip in roofing tar
for you. I lay dry blood for you, my human
hair. Gum at your holes. My roaming cat 
with leaping fleas. I soak you in Dawn,
marry me, your one Bromethalin bride.
Ingest me, convulse the neighbors’ dogs
who nose you out. I stake a pinwheel in 
your bed and watch it glint as it turns 
to dusk. You upriser, undead carnival 
game and my heart a mallet swinging. 
Barkers yearn for me to win their fish 
in a fist-sized bag. I will let the children
name them. Bury them with perennials. 
I pound nails to music of falling plaster
for picture frames of their faces kissing
the velvet faces of flowers. Monstrous,
tall species, color of panic in the sun.