I LIKE TO PICTURE HELL AS A HEATED POOL
I like to picture Hell as a heated pool—
I’ll let you figure out the name of the symmetrical tanning architect.
•
When I turned thirteen I began to worry very much about rubber souls and I thought
Sex was a prayer where one bent at the waist.
At eighteen I knew even less on the exact science of the thing, though
Could perfectly salt-to-taste any young dish.
The honeyveined girl of my GIRLHOOD DREAMS got deep rest in the winter,
Self-published a purple-hued manual on how to be emotionally stable.
The human heart is not to be trusted on matters outside her jurisdiction.
Wait to be let down. Better for your art.
Our poetess, a charcoal lung. This poetess, asking ghosts if it’s true we all die alone.
ALEX taught me to speak in epigrams. I emptied his words of meaning.
Illustrated the above in a series of postcards sent from a wineshop.
Boys with daisies for arms begged to peek through my window eyes. Daffodil men
Came prepared with pleading tributes—handmade!
Three wisewomen on their way to some show slowed their palominos
to wave hello hello hello to the virgin girl.
She, wrapped in a length of telephone wire in the back of a station wagon, impressed to herself
SOME FULLY-FUNCTIONING LOVERS CAN BE SEEN FROM SPACE.
Scratched ‘em out when they weren’t les mots justes.
I am holding a phone in one hand and the person on the other side is telling me
I am everything anyone could want and nothing anyone could need.
Same kid said you are a poison—
Couldn’t get enough.
Carly, baby, you perpetual uppercase noun:
Pinch yourself; prove a thought is like a touch.
Bruiseblue whispers, you had the best ceiling of them all.
•
This poem is prettier than your mouth but less honest.
____________________________________________________________________
CARLY WILSON studies at the University of Arizona, where she is earning a BA in Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law. She lives in Tucson. There is a cat.