Three Poems
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by Amanda Chiado
The Rocky History of the Liver & Brian For years they’ve only been speaking to each other through mismatched magnetism. There is the cyclical nature of call and hang up like a song that goes on too long with a dead chorus. The breakup story is bloody enough to kill the memories of both. The first time I ever received a dozen roses was after I was backhanded in my front yard in the middle of the night. He slapped the skin off me and sped off. He threw my purse and its contents onto the freeway; another leather bag missing its insides. My liver and brain could not see eye to eye across an ocean of champagne. My father taught me the art of liquified invisibility. I’ve hired a heartbreak seamstress to be the middleman, but she always shows up hungover. Ode to the Virgin Mojito You aren’t taking the edge off. The people at my table are not statues or dolls, and their aliveness is accentuated by the lack of alcohol soothing my overall observations. Can you offer more? Can’t you sing in me loud enough that I become a satellite? Well then, if we are to go into sobriety together, I’ll tell you the truth. I feel too much. I tried to buy the website www.overfelt.com and make a career out of this ache in me. My brother told his friend, “This is my sister, she’s a poet.” She thought we were extinct. Virgin Mojito, I bet you hate everyone calling you a virgin. Shame is another emoji waiting urgently for all the love. Do you want to swim with me and devirginize the language of freedom? Does your skin want to run? Be my hammock. Be my priest. At least, thank God, you insist on telling me the truth Ode to My Mother's Deviled Eggs Mom only makes deviled eggs at Christmas. I earned the peeling job of practiced gentleness. My mother is precise in her cutting with a draftsman touch. The pressure needed from a blade differs between egg and onion. I saw them as a holy trinity. The greenish-yellow yolks, the sweet relish and, my favorite part, the misty dust of paprika. Maybe she’d saved up the food stamps for extra eggs. She is always full of miracles. She says, “I was never gifted at anything.” I think of her mother making fried eggs in lard and lies. I always eat too many, enough to cause a stomachache. Before the year is over, I’ll forget how delicious and tender they are; how full I can get on my mother’s magic alone. Amanda Chiado is a poet, educator, and arts advocate whose surreal and bodily poetry aims to break your heart. |