Poetry

6 Poems

Ellen Adams

making room

the photos came down
she disappeared
except in my inbox
in my dreams she
hates me in my
home she is gone

do we still speak?
you ask

i don’t want to speak
i want your skin
you are inside my
rooms you take up
space you have three
dimensions i don’t
want stillness i
don’t want speaking
come here now your
worry is an air-filled
globe but your body
is the actual the earth
it’s the earth i want
not photos not maps
_

how to start the affair

pay for the hostel
in cash

for the hostel
in cash
pay for
one night

or one hour
your best bet
is a brief wager

no
your best bet
is to cash out

praying twice

when i sing i don’t know where it goes
except out

it goes out for cigarettes
out for a drink
for blood

it’s not for god

the peace that passes all understanding
out of my body then
out of my life

sing your sorrows, they say
it’s like praying twice

i don’t know where it goes
_

the wound

the first time I took you

home
I wanted

you

to love

yourself—
you were a wide open well
and I was salt
bags and bags of
salt

rubbing
dissolving

I could have
melted ice
barricaded floods
I had all the ingredients and
packaging but
I wasn’t anything

in your body
rubbing
dissolving
just salt
_

my lover shaves his face

I named his stubble
he attended to stubble
I roll, watch from the dark
he razored the shadow
two o’clock in the morning

Jesus is the rock and he rolls
my blues away. Close shave
back in bed, smooth skin
slipping in. Stubble said,
done. My blues away
_

SPOKANE SHOCKS

they say we have a football team now
the shocks

go shocks!

but then they say
“we’re having a nice spring”
i’m outside the we

53º

they say your social security number
tells where you’re born

9:27 PM 4/13
deaconess hospital

i still root for the home team
if we don’t win it’s a shame

99203
509

i never liked football
212
+33 +34

57º tomorrow
highs and lows and leagues