Five Superb Poems by Kim Malinowski

 

Who will sing our names to the stars?

 

Bruising kisses // buttercups// scraped butter toast // your warm exhale on my shoulder // baggy all-encompassing sweater // you sprawling // finger tracing navel // whisper of rain // dashing out holding hands // us standing chin to chin // soaked // sinking into clover bower // into moss // ferns creeping around hands // petting spongy moss // me drinking starlight // willow branches hide us // caressed by wind // palms up // calloused hand to smooth // petting tangy bruises // mired in clay // snuggled in sepia sandy loam // trace scent of myrrh // velvet tongue // spine shiver// supplication // the old gods gave names power // our connection // binding to land and roots // you paint your name on one breast // my name on the other // charcoal scratches meaning onto skin // we pray // I supplicate beneath the constellations// waiting to be read. 

 

 

Unfastened by Magnets

 

I needed to pay attention to paper, pen,

weaving luxurious calligraphic letters,

but magnetic words called me.

Words arranged and rearranged into hardly

recognizable language—but that tangled ear.

All those trilled definitions hanging in air,

smooshed stratigraphy, escaping bubbles,

iridescent rainbows bursting in sunlight.

I mapped magnetic destiny, knowing

that language should be broken,

and that I, a god, could place an -ly or … [ellipsis]

and dangle more meanings into starlight.

The valleys and ridges of paper important,

but the magnetic whiteboard held my gibberish,

the dexterity of words made me anarchist,

and when slid onto paper, the frayed meanings

unfastened. 

 

 

Stonehenge Bluestone

 

I slide finger across Stonehenge

bluestone fleck.

The same every dawn

far from home,

brothers and sisters

scattered.

In the light the blue is mottled

mottled

 

like me.

 

Each caress connects to ancients,

to indescribable bigness

found in small stone.

Yearning for distant land,

my relic, me, wishes reunion.

 

I am left with the shard dancing,

my fingertip sighing into overcast sky,

heart beating for far away pillars. 

 

 

           Wing

                      To the girl who lost her ragdoll

                                 by the tree

 

1.   Watch out for that torn wing, stuck

in the thicket.

She is the glitz of the night sky,

the quiet of the glade,

 

the dip and spin

of a dead butterfly

 

in the web.

 

Don’t touch her.

The web will wind

you back.

 

2.   A fluttering,

a flicker of life,

the wing dances

 

in afternoon shadow,

the wind carries night.

           Dusk comes in dancing

           to a fairy song.

 

3.

           Have you lost your wing?

           It hangs at angles,

           not meant to be.

           Thyme and thistle.

           Dangle and tangle with me.

4.

           Wherever the wing blows

           she whistles.

           The music carried

           to a lonely tree.

          

           Your dropped ragdoll

shakes off the moss,

brushes away the cobwebs,

hurriedly stitches

on the wing.

It bends hesitantly,

then flaps hard.

The wind carries her off a fae. 

 

 

Shade

 

I blow on dandelion,

seeds rush off

as I twirl, falling into buttercups.

I want to be honeysuckle—wild—

on dark nights musk

rolling through hills,

not this orchid.

I want shadow and blood.

I lay in sunshine—imagine

crimson rolling from my veins,

scratch at them. Watch them trickle.

I want to be captured, bitten and drained.

Eyes wide, sky blue, haze of flowers, I feel fire.

I wait.

Kim Malinowski is a lover of words. Her collection Home was published by Kelsay Books and her chapbook Death: A Love Story was published by Flutter Press. Her work has appeared in Mookychick, Amethyst Review, Songs of Eretz, BLUEPEPPER, Gramarye, Enchanted Living, and others. She writes because the alternative is unthinkable.