Angelica Vaccaro
une.
Magnolia trees, peaches, finite hums of a black guitar, a low guitar.
Am I a mountain? Within the sky I discovered a kaleidoscope.
How many hues do I?
Finite hums of a desperate violin,
I’m sorry for all of my caves and my vacant graves.
Is the sunlight meant to feel this lonesome?
I thought I was a king, I reigned and rained for two years and many days.
All of my diamonds,
my crystal and violet lungs.
(lungs.gut.liver.veins.)(and the blood and the blood and the blood.)
Poor ivory serviette, lax and laden (ruby cells clot and clamor.)
deux.
Photographs in a smoky haze and my pupils in a daze and my face in a maze, and who?
It was the last day of my life.
Wasn’t it the end, mama?
Remember how the credits breached my throat and I was chaos?
I was chaos and some kind of music bloomed in the cobble and the concrete.
How on fucking Earth was there music?
It was your palm, the cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. It was your palm (turquoise ice/frozen waves)
it was your p a l m, mama.
It was the last day of my life.
trois.
I dissect my jawbones,
my cheekbones,
my collarbones.
I dream of bones and crumbling molars.
Rape and ravage my skull; a symphony of nightmares and disasters.
Break apart the chalky shell to display what matters, and the matter.
The ivory walls watch as I change in and out and through,
and all of the eyes.
I am a god now.
quatre.
I don’t talk about my father too often,
but I have his hands and his endangered magnitude.
Is insanity in a war in the most violent idiosyncrasy? –
how much of himself how much of myself are contradictions/how much of himself how much of myself are approximations?
Deny everything. Deny everything. Deny everything.
Yes, father. Deny everything.
I saw a hornet shot out of the sky.
Was it too much for the wind, for the little lost kingdom?
(break a sweat) imagine all of the effort – get away from me.
Water me and I will wilt in spite of you.
Why is everything a snake?
(emerald eyes, black and gold scales,
an unapologetic tongue and an infuriating hide.
get away from me.)
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Angelica Vaccaro is an emerging poet and essayist who lives and works in Metro Detroit, and has been writing for over two decades.