ALEXIS RENEE SMITH

With Abandon

I am bad at expressing myself and try
like everyone else to move
                                               days on my shoulders smoothly

like a plain word in such a plain sentence you walked to your car
things are decided by size of shoulders and yours
were such of a shoulder I thought I was looking at slow posture coming in bloom
a pouring out was actually occurring and really the year shook with it but here in my head things seem so obvious
you were just walking

            to brim with moan is something
            at one time or another in streets
            possible lampposts possible blue
            skies it's not like we all live in the mood
            of weather

straight line flicker
                                  I lost
          this moment while speaking I
          lost this coat on Monday
          and hoped I hadn't lost this year

among things like I lost every
aspect of a circle
                              we don't isolate

that noun enough it is to sigh lets
                                                            make a sound and break
the page in half from sheer drive

having it all here
on platters of open oven we've
got that wild linen
                                 to look at things and say yes

do you remember the night that we both didn't sleep   and you were of course my little sister and so
it was not okay for you to buy      me a pregnancy test from the Wal-Mart across      from the hotel

but you did and it was negative and we were joy        while figuring out the sun was of course rising
and so we saw that too      and cried and it's not like you were fine       we weren't in fact sisters fine
with god but there

on the high point of some town we broke

fracture is how I feel
in some of the minutes spent
shaking this bowl
                           I would love

for you to not
notice even your breath but

somehow it's at those moments light cranks

the pacific from a cruise ship white ship white

                                                                          you would wonder how space seems to be so
                                                                          you would wonder how light falls on water just
rests violence
                           it is a love

that yanks faces this way that
way    a thirst of seeing

wilderness    and somehow the second night I met an ex
heroin addict
            he was from Australia and spun me on a dance floor
            on a ship like I've never felt gorgeous

                     sun setting on
                     wincing on so many waters
                     space is only everything we don't notice

with abandon

not a way of knowing
                                   anymore the arm fumbles    for sides and what

are warm ribs I've been looking
for a way to say the body
since I gave up on memory
and really it's so appalling
that someone can look

gin on white paper
weak with weak with lean over some crisp border
years are so woven
                                 knock on
curve on pink on bend breaking open

a chin falls over and leaks life everywhere
loudly

Alexis Renee Smith lives in Boulder, CO where she teaches creative writing at the University of Colorado, and is an MFA candidate. She is also involved in Timber, a literary journal, and has interned for CU’s Subito Press. She has two small dogs named Gretel and Arthur.