Wheels
I remember feeling,
long ago,
some of that
derisory
teenage anguish—
as if I fell to my feet,
warlike music all around.
Now I’m in the car,
my arm
outstretched, in the blustery weather,
remarkably euphoric
and roaring into downtown,
torn apart and put back together
then torn apart again and hollowed out—
shifting, collapsing
and making myself
a fireside inside the frame.
There is something about this ride,
the way the air floods and encircles,
breezes through
the vents and sockets.
Passengers unaware
as they set up house around me,
snuggling into coats
and abandoning old customs.
We all hear the music now,
so I strum my fist a piece
because all that exists,
whether reminiscences
or the earth itself,
will eventually not be,
and because I cannot rest
under these stars above the hood.
Not even in remembrance.
What Bird are You?
A Brown Thrasher is trying to build a nest
on what remains
of the broken light fixture on our back porch.
She ignores an angry family of Blue Jays
picking a fight in a bush nearby.
It’s just after Easter,
so she gathers shreds of sparkly green tinsel
from the neighbor’s trash bin
and tries to carefully drape each strand
over the inch of iron
jutting out from the brick.
Hours into her quest,
and she doesn’t seem to mind
when nothing sticks
or when moss and leaves
gather in a mound beneath her.
If I were a bird,
I would hang out in a line
on one of those signs stretching over the highway,
chatting in my ancient bird language,
honking with the cars racing below me.
To stay dry,
I would sit in the corner during a rainstorm,
where signpost meets steel bar,
and build my beautiful nest on the streetlight
near the overpass
so everyone would see
I’d stare back
into a cat’s yellow eyes
as it digs its nails
crossly into the ground
because within me
are hopeful monsters—
Tetanurae
Coelurosauria
Paraves
Tommy’s Thrush
would have nothing on my song.
Percy’s Skylark
would pale before my soar.
Christi Gravett (38) is a queer, non-binary professor from Little Rock, Arkansas. They’ve taught both Rhetoric and Creative Writing at the college level for 12 years. Christi has had non-fiction, poetry and photography published in various independent and small-press publications, and currently has a chapbook of 20 poems, titled “We Monsters”, available on Amazon. Their work provides glimpses into larger stories, focusing on single striking moments of happiness or discovery, unsaturated by heavy meaning.
RESURRECTION mag 