2 poems by Kendra Ralston

with summer breath

as if walking on the moon you said

i held your hand we laid there asphalt-side and you were telling me

what was it you at command. where no one listened our feet dangled

above seaweed its fistfuls our drunk-pink flesh where dawn kept us in green curl

i did not ask who you killed how it must have been to hold each burn

wide-eyed and crumbling no i did not ask did not think to ask because we carried

this graphite-blur its own heron its color a tinny sky blue-grey crescent

saunters inch by spindle inch her feathers simmer still on my tongue

ronda, spain

pero amor i can almost taste it

were i to lick these arches

rust-colored and round as psalms

above the waterfall’s scour

its mouth frothy and tulip-wide

i would ache

for the rocks their dimpled flesh

tiny and wondrous slight as fish teeth

and what would they ask of me. these poppies

red and ravenous crawling toward

flustery dregs of light

go on say it say i am drunk

on this world in freshwater prayer

would i i would

from this ledge let the winds nuzzle my bones

if only to stay suspended forever in song

_______

Kendra Ralston earned her MFA in Poetry from Fairfield University and resides in Washington, DC. These poems represent her first published work.