Poetry By Sam Moe

      Sunghwan Yoon CC




Rose House

held your face under water, fought in dreamy basements
whose wallpaper was coated in cherries and apple slices
his girlfriend’s sweater left on the couch, you take it, his
blazer in the bedroom, you’re wearing it over your bra
upset you couldn’t take more of his records after breaking
up but neither of you stay gone, speeding down the back
roads where later they’ll put up warning signs, you used
to be the first person he would go to and now you’re his
trusted confidant, there’s nothing going on but lace and
regret, he takes your best friends to bed and you pretend
not to care, then you’re drunk and ripping holes in your
jeans, the basement is smooth, smoky, full of music and
a boy you once thought you loved in high school, the girl
you dated and your ex has his hand on her thigh, this
isn’t about the tangle, nor is it about the day you tried
to push each other off the balcony, always daring into
the pool, no one cared those days about swimming in
their clothes, the bonfires all smelled like vanilla scones
someone else’s money in your underwear, sometimes
your mother yells, she can’t save you, you don’t tell
her this isn’t about salvation but racing, who is going
to tell her about the cheating, she is so good at glittering
eyeliner, she’s hanging paper stars on the chandeliers
and the others are cheering, a hazy circle and someone
calls her baby, you want to push her off the stool, ask
her where he was last night, did she hear the soft click
the unlock and his slippers on the porch, arrived in a car
with only its fog lights on, station wagon his daddy
bought him and it was covered in sap and dead spiders
neither of you cared, you climbed to the roof, promising
each other this was the last time, but what about now
while her back is turned and you’re trying to figure out
who could break your heart next, you forget you’re
wearing her necklace, she’s too starry-eyed to notice
someone else catches her when she trips, he’s by your
side laughing, looping an arm through yours, it’s like
if you destroy each other maybe someone will cast a spell
tell you to get out of your stale life, promise you sunroofs
and glass tables, new numbers and whipped cream chasers
give me back the time you stole, while he’s on the lawn
laughing at the stars you devise a plan to save your life
make way and make a new face, no one will know where
you are, you can see it now, the blur of rosebushes and
violet-hued clouds rushing by your rewritten heart.

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Drosera

Wasn’t it enough when I confessed to you
hated having a body, for enduring those days
in this body, this life, and riding in cars with
friends, kissing strangers in the back seats
of cars, my name like a mint in her mouth
we were fighting in the mall, stripping to get
into parties, I discarded identity at the door
hung hands on nails, and what did I know of
selfishness back then, no I didn’t, climbing
into bed became a secret, her elastic band 
around my wrist, her scars were my scars
and after all that, strained dinners at my 
mother’s, arroz con pollo and arrows then
dogs, I couldn’t name any of it if I tried, still
they took us to the killing forests, I can’t
look at trees the same way, I can’t say her
name, everything is mislabeled, blame turns
to bloom, shame turns into shell flower, stuck
the sea during a breakup, the storm she
stood in and told me she was jealous, can’t
you love more than one person or should I
get back on my knees, deer bodies and
glitter at the altar, why do I need to confess
to feel so open and raw, cauterize this
and christening that, the heal, never met
her, where do you roam these days, what
did you do with the horses, do you still
think I’m hateful, the idea of unconditional
rings and ropes my mind, a word feels
more like a disc or body or bite but who
was the first one to ruin our lives and why
does it feel like I’m a mold spore, we rebuilt
our sense of self from scratch but my history
rattles like a tongue loose in a bell, do I tell
the others, do I find new pastures, she is
alive and surviving while queer no longer
feels like a dare but a holiness, a screw-you
to the times you took my language and 
labels, maybe someday I’ll be able to look
myself in the mirror and forgive my teeth. 

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​Downfall

What doesn’t kill you comes to perch on your bedroom windowsill in the middle of the night offering a bucket of confetti stars and words like necessary and precarious, says time is short let’s go into the rain, and you’re bitter but you’ve grown accustomed, this isn’t the first night or the first stars, the first time you have seen such a marvelous bucket, but this thing wants to go for a swim in the neighbor’s pool, wants you to give up smiling and writing at the same time, to take the ridiculous life you’ve given yourself and dig, dig, search, search, with a brand-new shovel in the earth, there you will find your old hair, the hole in which you once fell, the letters she wrote you and the notches in the bed post, one for each time you saw the birds in your dreams, but the thing wants to know how many birds and how many dreams, wants to know why all this metaphor and not scenery, but where are we, and why are all the lawn chairs out in the middle of hurricane season, your face feels blue and you want to take on the world by yourself, wish you were used to champagne and love, you could be rinsing your mind the color of a fresh pearl, dancing with the others in the ballroom, why don’t you tell your friends how to create from those wounds you thought you’d healed, well why don’t we stay for the hurricane and the pain, the way your neighbors are shaking their fists at you through their bedroom window, muttering about those damned teenagers and their friends who shimmer like halogen and holographic shapes, you thought this was going to be another dream where you saved yourself and survived long enough to see the field turn bright and green in April but instead you are lost, and the history has left the pool, and someone hands you a towel but you don’t recognize them, asks why you’re swimming in your clothes again, offers you a seat at the kitchen table while they sort all this out, hands you hot cocoa and sings you lullabies, says goodnight before sealing your history into a space behind the wall, there-there, no more memories tonight, look closely, the space between the sealant and the fridge is a deity space, a space of love, of change, when you wake up in the morning you’ll have orange juice and waffles, butter shaped like seashells and syrup that tastes like berries whose names you’ve only heard of in fairytales, and the pool is overgrown with flowers, and you don’t even think about the wall anymore, you don’t even ask where the wallpaper came from, the bright blue one with witches and candle wicks, magic, they say, now let’s have ourselves a nice rest on the couch while the storm recovers from being outside.




Sam Moe is the recipient of a 2023 St. Joe Community Foundation Poetry Fellowship from Longleaf Writers Conference. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from Whale Road Review, The Indianapolis Review, Sundog Lit, and others. Her poetry book Heart Weeds is out from Alien Buddha Press and her chapbook Grief Birds is forthcoming from Bullshit Lit in April ’23. Her full-length Cicatrizing the Daughters is forthcoming from FlowerSong Press.
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