Poetry by Lauren Suchenski

                       Jeff Ruane CC



​I follow


I follow the courage of
bare feet across the genealogical map -
Past Kentucky; Broken Arrow;
Names that place themselves at the
back of my tongue; slide down my
throat, but cannot be swallowed /
I consume this history - easy;
words on paper - letters on
carved rocks - headstones
on new grass and depleted soil /
clay rubbed eyelashes - your heart
pearled into the oxygen of the
atmosphere
like so many ancestors
curling towards the sky //
Tiny ridges on the hillside;
roots digging towards the hollow
light of the earth; nothing insignificant;
nothing not worth
reaching towards;
everything somewhere;;
or all at once
in its own
place
just where it has always been

I follow the path, the past, the part of the
place misplaced from where it partook in the
participation of
the present

I follow the courage
of so many bare footsteps
(whose prints have long since
blown away in the wind)
but whose clay rubbed wishes
still find me in the
roots
reaching towards the hollow light of the earth;
nothing insignificant; nothing
not worth
reaching towards





When


When the afternoon sun peeled away at the tiny
cells of our brave skin – when we jumped off the high rocks
30 feet in the air
and my heart heat fluttered after yours , the gum trees
splattered like muted symphonies ;
the ancient call of wild birds slicing through the window
the morning question tapping at my cupboard
Weetabix and the change in my tongue
that changed for you
the endless cacophony of waves that rolled towards us
a snake peeking out of the bush, 
the air filled with starlight ; the southern cross
streaming over our heads like a pile of prayers
to the modern world –
to find the thread at the bottom of the rainbow serpent
and follow it like a kite
letting the wind blow you
and your feet walk you
towards horizons made more magical
with every blink you break

We tied our love inside a bottle, tossed
it down the river, ; let the goop of the ages
mix with algae, seaweed and all our wishes for the future
-- it caught fire, it was swallowed by pollution,
it was buffeted by a hurricane ;
and still it bobs
a little map home
whenever the Dreaming calls me
again




​
I told you so 

​
now i press my bundled clavicle into the smell of your chest / i heave my hunger for the past to
pass into your throat /// the wilderness of without you curls through the bones between us ; the
tepid history of the future about to unfold ; the goodbye kiss wrapped in cellophane at the end of
a wire

and now you close the door, sudden eyed - wide breathed - you hurl your eyes at the atmosphere,
drenched and red-soaked, graciousness in the kiss of your forehead against my lips // hunger
everywhere - spread cataclysmic on the table - the little clicking tock wheels of the clock run dry
- apple butter kiss and words fumbled motionless - clanking against one another in the autumn
air - the trees too, sigh today; yellow fervor and orange abandonment - i fold you into my wreath,
i hang you on my wall, i let you dry (ancient flower pickings i once alived) - you tell me
goodbye again, three times, 12 times (i will not let you leave without) another kiss, a choked
hickory nut kiss / chestnut ruby / the way goodbye smells when it rubs against your hipbone / i
curl myself; fetal, leaf-feathered: mountain-ridged leaf-death drying / drying, hanging, making a
permanence of your goodbye - to keep on my shelf, to keep on my wall / your heart like a hunted
head / your goodbye; a prize - saying ‘i told you so, i told you so’ // i told you you would leave
me like this, so here i am now; the winner; the truth teller, the soothsayer, the little old witch
hanging the bracken and sheaves / letting the leaves curl at the edges as they fall / whispering the
​same solemn mantra again and again like an insect choir - i told you so, i told you so

​

Lauren Suchenski has a difficult relationship with punctuation and currently lives in Yardley, PA. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, three times for The Best of the Net and her chapbook “Full of Ears and Eyes Am I” is available from Finishing Line Press. You can find more of her writing on Instagram @lauren_suchenski or on Twitter @laurensuchenski

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