Jaimie Gusman: TWO POEMS • Cleaver Magazine

Jaimie Gusman
TWO POEMS

THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE BLUE DRIVES MY FLOWER

so it begins [spring]……… leopards from a crowd of moss hills bloom
I don’t live there; I built my ship…………………………………..sailed jungle bound
to procreate………………………..among the mongoose sifting through……….. sand ponds
…………this is where
I wait, sunburnt

my littlest, Jonie…………………might have leopard qualities
might be math-inspired ………my logic is space………my logic is more water to safety

the ruining begins [summer] by cutting………………….clusters of birds
…………………………………………………………………..of paradise
their yellow red beaks, their gemstones break
like sugar
between my palms………………………….I have learned nothing………..blue grows
in my garden…………………bed [winter]
I want…………………………………………………………… a tall tree breaking through
…………………………………….the roof………..like the Pantheon

in Italy, once
I had the tongue of a boy in my throat…………………………………………………[fall]
a man has taken care of that

A DOZEN RAW

a delicacy is not a frozen thorn
not a leopard’s pant
………….tongue thawed
declawed…….. somewhere in Winter Park
a museum dedicated to glass…………..the fragile organ
sits hillside

I dropped acid on the precipice
of a eight story walk-up………………….miles from the stained installment
where your parents lived,
hours from an all male state prison

that night I sang the star spangled banner
into an etched cup.………………./ into an eye I called Venus
………….I fell and fell again North
into the lap of Antonio
into the Jennifers
and the oyster beds of Apalachicola

Jaimie Gusman is a freelance writer and poets-in-the-school teacher living in Kaʻaʻawa, HI. Jaimie has three chapbooks: Gertrude’s Attic (Vagabond Press, 2014), The Anyjar (Highway 101 Press, 2011), and One Petal Row (Tinfish Press, 2011). Recent work can also be found in the Jewish Literary Journal, Rise Up Review, The Bleeding Lion, Moss Trill, The Feminist Wire, and the anthology All We Can Hold. Her first full-length book, Anyjar will be published by Black Radish Books in Fall 2017.