Shelbi Church
Shelbi Church is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama, where she is an assistant poetry, fiction, and nonfiction editor for Black Warrior Review. Her fiction and Pushcart Prize-nominated poetry can be found in Poetry Online, Hobart, Ghost City Review, Barren Magazine, Overheard, and elsewhere. This summer she will attend the Tin House Workshop in poetry led by Franny Choi. Hailing from Haslet, Texas, and more recently Boston, Massachusetts, she now lives and writes in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
delayed aubade
after Frank O’Hara
there is nothing left to exclaim. i’ve eaten
all the typewriter keys, pried each nail from each
finger and toe. when i scream, it’s into lush meadow.
the deer no longer run from me. they stride with grace,
the bloodied axes buried in their necks now permanent
parts of them. with my tongue removed i become fluent
in shadow puppet. drag my feet across the burning stones
to learn morse code. when i sob, it’s into the memory
of your chest hair. to be held is to be radicalized. to let go is to be
caught in the taffy puller. moan a song that sounds like pain.
in the car, phoebe sings i want to believe. i pray for more
red lights, less x-files invocation. even the italicized clouds
remind me of you, the grocery store hymnals. so little sense
to be made. a ghost in plaid floats by like false autumn.
we once sighed into our hands with eyes locked deep
into the spiral of night. love, a secret—i am unwell. there is
no water, no pail to descend. one of these days there will be nothing
left with which to venture forth. why should i share you?
when we first met it was in that field cut low, green nearly
indistinguishable from us. your mouth tasted like haiku.
hardly noticed the bear trap suckling my calf.
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