K. Iver

Sestina as Foreplay He asked for six words to write me a sestina: red, draw, like, see, reflection, peruse. I told him shift tenses, change meanings, use homophones, like sea or read or draw as in to draw my body or draw out what’s inside me. Wedding Season Summer weddings are so romantic, I say to my ex-boyfriend. Sudden rainstorms, the smog of wildfires coming down from Canada. Makes me think we could’ve worked. Distance be damned. See, that type of burning can cross countries.

You’ve never seen a lilac in Mississippi. Backstage you wear lotion laced with its chemical imitation. A ballet mistress says relevé always as command: lift onto the toe using only the heel. Your ankle’s bewilderment old as the horned owl gaze from your mother hunched in the audience. You enter the stage as Lilac Fairy & fairies make critical things happen, though underneath your tulle brushing sleep over a kingdom, you’re a mouse who gets eaten every night. No audience wants to see that.

Because many artists move to Taos, I thought the colors would be bright. The mountainsides are showing me what little I know about form. I’ve seen height, not this contrast, a rolling softness turning rough then soft again along the drive. The afternoon sun shutters all texture inside my body. A reminder that the most protected pain can allow touch. I’ve never had interest in light. My new friend Jaynie says she hasn’t seen this kind. She has thirty years on me and a Jewish understanding of grief.