REMY CRUZ

midrush i:
sappho, whispering to me a secret.

from   under  her  lashes  tells
me, hand                       pressed
to her breast, I remember
                 the color of her eyes
when she          touched      my
face,   longing  slick  between
             beating       us      pink.
               and she says the eyes
were brown       like      mine
as she holds my gaze   and
she says            I wish she was
my mother       and  I   in   her
w0mb, again,  felt          pain.
pleasant  like  lapping water,
              and     was     not     so
overcome with love for
               her.

midrush ii:
cliffs of phaon

violet-haired lover,  who leapt
off          leucadian for the sake
of            keeping history naïve
tell        us     of    your    fabled
husband,      man   built   from
words, and if his body stained
your  hands   or   crumpled  to
dust when you touched him.
exiled  idol,  home  kept in the
isle .     Lesbos,          overcome
with longing, tell us       where
you've gone      and .   if    their
stories     have      been     spun
              with  deft  fingers or if
you        really felt the brush of
another woman's      palm   on
your flushed skin and thought
that to be eden 

eve eating the apple in the garden of eden

everything,     here,     reverent     &    beautiful,
              still    heavy    &    hanging,    and    now
my chest              so,   my   head    so,   watching
the fruit               slip    from    my   fingers   into
the grass              I   feel   my   body,   once,  as  I
have never          done     before.     there     is    a
beauty   in  me   and  in   this  form   I  did   not
know                    until    that   which    was    not
filled,                    was.

that there, looming thing


that there, looming thing stops to look and the words curl around its body a rise and fall breast of
mouths yawn words slide free from drawn lips


its warped body collapses the language & turns it to fool’s gold
              has it told you what it believes?


its great head swivels into the forest where those dark things that lurk are dredged up coughing 
tar out of lungs materialize with blinking sunburned eyes and faded skin from the


sheet of fog the things that hide
              has it made you sick?


resisting the coming out the dragging forth the stumbling the halting
that there, looming thing made of letters strung into words words into


leash that binds your limbs your hands and feet tied your neck drawn forward
              has it done what is right?


your hand cupping her breast like a little warm thing cold fingers prying for her heart


torn away like you weigh nothing
              has it been insufferable?


it lives with those dark things with that fog with that forest and those black trees like bars on 
windows it eats like a bird stomach contracting canal throat


heaves up and out things that lined themselves up to be eaten
              has it given you pause?


it is made of the words sticking like nettles to rippling flesh each leaf pricking to draw blood


              has it looked in your eyes?


you are carried on the back of that there, looming thing, you board the


freight, heavy with thick bodies of words you have seen your mother mouth
              has it called you monster?


it is made of those sick words eats those dead things and now carries you on its back, away from
her and into your own self shrink smaller and then the


flood of words pause and fear
              leash tail made of rope that burns your hands if you clench them to keep it all together


now it’s naked and stripped of color of flesh fur body but now all those nettles and all
              those wicked words are ripping and tearing at you they carve away her image


it is part of you now
              there is no turning back


              has it claimed your name?

Remy Cruz is a graduating senior studying creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She writes about being a lesbian—sometimes about being a brown lesbian—but mostly about the deer and birds she sees when she goes for walks. She is previously unpublished.