November again and I stagger
like the walking dead to you:
the last lobo casting his eyes
on a ghost pepper moon.
The skin I shed for you
is not a costume—
though our consummation
is a strange parade.
You cup me like ceviche,
drum me like timbales,
make me a machete and I cull
from you the mariachi’s holiest note.
I can still taste your tamarind mouth,
your whole corazón rimmed in salt.
A quickening of cicada wings
triggers my tongue—I sing too
of ruin and of resurrection.
Our timbre of hips is a tango,
a ripple in matchstick grass.
Mexican marigolds cling
to the earth for dear life on this day—
but the beauty of death is forever.
Roll the bones and tell me now,
how will we go—by water or by fire?
Love is the most natural disaster
of all. The small volcano
of your heart stirs in its sleep—
and I rise like the Sea of Cortez.
–
Stacey Forbes is the author of “Little Thistles” a poetry chapbook published by Finishing Line Press as the winner of their 2023 New Women’s Voices competition. Stacey’s work appears in some of the publications she loves, including Beloit Poetry Journal, New Ohio Review, Terrain.org, and Split Rock Review. Born in Pennsylvania, Stacey now lives and writes in Tucson, Arizona.
© 2024, Stacey R. Forbes
Halfway Down the Stairs 