Rebecca Salazar
Social butterfly kisses
The queen of spades was holding out on us, and served
only weak tea and soda crackers to her guests.
We hope we don’t smell like our lust, though we keep it
in jars by our pillows, and bathe in its castles by night.
Proximity and plenitude are queasy lovers,
too young, still, to move with ease in tandem.
After pausing to rest your good leg below the granaries,
you answered me only by trickling away into wheat germ.
Don’t tell me it’s precision that I lack. Lean closer
and my crooked nose will cut you.
Fromagerie Elgin
For M, at the Cello Café
The trouble with our Sunday pizzicato
is we’re stubborn, muting out all other sounds,
leaving our mid-weeks stopped with cotton.
Sight-reading through these pale-gilt afternoons
with sugared tea and four new kinds of brie,
we syncopate. Pretend the kettle brews
no more demands than to play low. Sweet,
let us never wed, and this way, never bruise.
Attachment is like licking metal fences
in the winter: we’ve both lost some flesh,
some sense of taste for trying. We’re convinced
we’ll never break this harmony, this rush.
Our ostinato is a vaulted chapel ceiling,
is the brush of skin on gut string.
Rebecca Salazar has published poetry and non-fiction in journals including Prism, Minola, and The Puritan. Her poetry chapbook, Guzzle, was released by Anstruther Press in 2016. Originally from Sudbury, Ontario, she is currently a PhD candidate and Vanier scholar in New Brunswick.