PHOTO WITH FACELESS, 2006
ELISA LUNA-ADY
sometimes i wish i could uneat memories.
ones where hands are grappling, palm-to-
cunt. i am dangling from the steeple of a
rotting church, there is mold on the bath-
room walls and it smells of tobacco and
weed, my head is shaved down dull, i am
unchristened and on the brink of shaking
god's hand for the first time. while i am
away, my mcdonald's fries go stale and
when i return to them, they no longer
taste good. that's how some memories are
too. so i tame the swelling and i bury my
dead bunny and i rearrange all the rooms
in my dollhouse twice over. it doesn't stop
raining and i can still see the outline of a
man behind the screen of my window,
blurry and yellow-gold through the curtains.
when i revisit old photo albums, his face
is scratched off wherever he appears, like
a seraph took their thumb to him and, with
great care, rubbed at him till he whited out.
i know what it's like to be whittled down, to
be stuck inside a moment, shrinking, until
your flesh fails you. that night i tell god,
forehead to sheetless mattress: i promise
to stop using dead things in my poems. i
promise to stop imagining girls together,
skin hoisted and slung and lifted like fog,
breast-to-breast, breathless with bright
black light. i promise i will pick up the
phone when you call. i swear i see her–
god, i mean–but in the morning i realize
i was looking at myself in the mirror above
my bed the whole time, skinny elbows and
big forehead and flat black eyes. later, i will
remember that it was my thumb. so often
my memory fails me, but never when i
recall a man in my bathroom, on the other
side of my window, tugging me down the
sidewalk in a little red wagon with a smile
that, still today, seems nothing but kind.
i believe they call that a failure of rot. or
was it rust? or was it god / man / decay /
dead thing come alive again? i can never
remember it right.
ones where hands are grappling, palm-to-
cunt. i am dangling from the steeple of a
rotting church, there is mold on the bath-
room walls and it smells of tobacco and
weed, my head is shaved down dull, i am
unchristened and on the brink of shaking
god's hand for the first time. while i am
away, my mcdonald's fries go stale and
when i return to them, they no longer
taste good. that's how some memories are
too. so i tame the swelling and i bury my
dead bunny and i rearrange all the rooms
in my dollhouse twice over. it doesn't stop
raining and i can still see the outline of a
man behind the screen of my window,
blurry and yellow-gold through the curtains.
when i revisit old photo albums, his face
is scratched off wherever he appears, like
a seraph took their thumb to him and, with
great care, rubbed at him till he whited out.
i know what it's like to be whittled down, to
be stuck inside a moment, shrinking, until
your flesh fails you. that night i tell god,
forehead to sheetless mattress: i promise
to stop using dead things in my poems. i
promise to stop imagining girls together,
skin hoisted and slung and lifted like fog,
breast-to-breast, breathless with bright
black light. i promise i will pick up the
phone when you call. i swear i see her–
god, i mean–but in the morning i realize
i was looking at myself in the mirror above
my bed the whole time, skinny elbows and
big forehead and flat black eyes. later, i will
remember that it was my thumb. so often
my memory fails me, but never when i
recall a man in my bathroom, on the other
side of my window, tugging me down the
sidewalk in a little red wagon with a smile
that, still today, seems nothing but kind.
i believe they call that a failure of rot. or
was it rust? or was it god / man / decay /
dead thing come alive again? i can never
remember it right.
AN ANARCHIST'S POCKETBOOK
ELISA LUNA-ADY
sometimes it's just this: the sun cupped in cracked palms like an unripe mango not yet dead. it doesn't leak and my skin is still chapped from the heat. my hand-me-down jeans swim around my waist and i ward off white men with bundles of burning rosemary and lavender. photo: moonrise over a war-torn meadow retweeted by X celebrity reminds me of america's military occupation elsewhere. i dream of girl-mouths and conchas softened by milk and tongue. i dream of self-immolation performed in the name of resistance. i dream of clean water. i dream of a god i've never met. subtleties escape me and i've met most gods. i am roused by bad news and lulled to sleep to the sound of flooding. the starving eat the rich and this flag means nothing when worn as a cape. there exist small revolutions––political poetry, bruises that have since yellowed over, de-needled cacti slow-cooked over a small flame. most humans are a collection of misplaced sentences. so too is this poem. me despierto cuando el hambre comienza. ain't sleepy. ain't sleepy. ain't sleepy, but i am hungry. i am hungry and bloodless beneath the skin and my country is a burnt-out votive candle cupped in my cracked palms.
ELISA LUNA-ADY is a soft-eyed Chicana from Southern California. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Cosmonauts Avenue, Noble / Gas Qrtly, Synaesthesia, and elsewhere. She enjoys reading texts on revolution and picking fights with people. She tweets @astronomyhoe.