Anti-Heroin Chic
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Music
  • Art
  • Comedy
  • About Our Contributors
  • Masthead
  • Issues
  • About our contributors - 2019
  • About Our Contributors - 2020
  • About Our Contributors - 2021
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Music
  • Art
  • Comedy
  • About Our Contributors
  • Masthead
  • Issues
  • About our contributors - 2019
  • About Our Contributors - 2020
  • About Our Contributors - 2021
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

​

8/5/2021

Poetry by Kalyn Livernois

Picture
                ​Timo Newton-Syms CC



​​Magic Trick featuring Peonies


To the left of the house, a peony bush -
a great delight at five years old. PEE-on-ee.
Hilarious. But more than that, their milky-pink
petals bloomed round as the full moon. Ants 
crawled in and through and around their powdery
layers, wound tight and countless, spiraling in. 
To the left of the bush, a shed, a father inside
sawing something so that the dust gathered in
piles on his work table. Sawdust like a softer sand, 
inviting. She watches the work a while in silence,
sawdust falling into anthills. He can’t play
right now, he says, not looking up. In the backyard
there is a defunct Barbie Jeep—found, spray painted
the shade of cherry skins, and left for the rain; 
a treehouse the color of sawdust, but lonelier. This
memory can’t contain anyone else: it’s too quiet.
Eerie. In this memory, no one else is home
and her father keeps on cutting the once-trees. If
you never stop the saw, you never have to play. 
That’s the trick. The ants just keep spiraling
into the petals and she returns to watching them.
This memory is quiet, but the peonies
will always be the loudest part.




​
Dammit, Mary

                after Mary Oliver


You’ve gone out with
your basket and pen
to collect violets, which
my mother calls Johnny jump-ups
 
and I kind-of-smile, kind-of-
wince because I know she wishes
those days with her cousins 
picking wildflowers in western PA 
could have lasted a little
longer
 
before she left for California with my dad
and drove and drove and drove
into her memories; they 
became the safest place.
 
I bought her a book of your poems
for her birthday. The big seven-oh
 
—I guess because I wanted her
to know you like I do, stepping
barefoot at dawn onto dew-dropped ground
and walking and walking and walking
into a world that is willing to hold you
 
where violets
line your basket
 
I wanted that much beauty for her.
 
You once told me
that the only life I could save
was my own -
 
but dammit, Mary. Dammit.



Picture
Kalyn Livernois is an MFA candidate at New England College. She is a prose editor at Cobra Milk and the managing editor of Variant Literature's journal. Her work has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Dust Poetry Magazine, Stone of Madness Press, CP Quarterly, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. You can find her on Twitter @kalynroseanne.


Comments are closed.

    Author

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    December 2024
    November 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    March 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.