and when you pull over, you’re still screaming,
hands held shaking in front of you like the skin
of them must not be real. my body hurled into
your windshield like mid-autumn hailstorm. my body
leaves streaks of blood and feathers and blindsided
desecration. my body the railroad tracks and
the trainwreck. the punching bag and the percussion
instrument. the pigeon queen, at once both sickness
and softness. you’re stumbling out of your vehicle,
sobs chiming from your throat. you see from
far away a mash of gray and white and red and bone.
tell yourself you can look at me up close. the carnage,
and the tenderness vomited from its mouth. there is
a strange grief inside you and you don’t know how
to free it from your ribs. there was a grief inside me,
and it spills an ocean on this asphalt.
Wanda Deglane is a night-blooming desert flower from Arizona. She is the daughter of Peruvian immigrants and attends Arizona State University. Her poetry has been published or forthcoming from Rust + Moth, Glass Poetry, Drunk Monkeys, and Yes Poetry, among other lovely places. Wanda is the author of Rainlily (2018), Lady Saturn (Rhythm & Bones, 2019), Venus in Bloom (Porkbelly Press, 2019), and Bittersweet (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2019).
Photo: Chris Slupski
