A Love Letter
Two Poems by Erin Cummiskey
Tinder
— Looking for the boy with rosacea wearing a grey hoodie I passed on the freeway, eating almonds and singing to himself in his pickup truck covered in June dust.
— Looking for the man with the stars and stripes hat in the breakfast diner who, after three mimosas, told his friend that tree saws have heartbeats if you know what to listen for.
— Looking for someone that my heart can eagerly start growing around without needing to be trimmed in the summer of covered in the winter.
— Must be afraid of death. Must be convinced in his own twenty-two-year-old way that he is invincible. Must be left-handed.
— Looking for someone who won’t mind if I cry when we make love on Wednesdays. It has to be slow on Wednesdays.
A Love Letter
Healing came
before I expected it,
a baby wrapped in blue cotton
carried to me by a stork named November,
and when it dropped on my doorstep
I awoke under warm sheets
and a blanket of overcast skies
to the smell of a fresh coat of pink paint drying on my ceiling
and the alarming feeling
that my chest wasn’t rotting anymore,
no longer an unfinished apple on the counter
browning in the air
but once again whole
and crisp
and ripe for the picking.
The last sky of October had been purple,
a plum swollen with stars — bite marks.
I watched the clock turn the month into midnight,
31 days wrapped in a box, tied with a bow,
and given to me with a card that said
for your troubles.
From the other side of the bed I heard
“Hey, it’s november.”
I replied yes.
I was answered with silence, and then suddenly
“I fucking hate november.”
Erin Cummiskey is originally from a small rural town in the Foothills of California known for its gold mining in bygone days and retirement-age population as of late. She is currently a psychology major at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington and one day hopes to become a psychiatrist and publish her own collection of poetry. Next year she will be taking art and music classes for a semester in Salzburg, Austria.
Photo Credits: Walker Evans, photographer (American, 1903–1975), The Cactus Plant, 1930–1931. Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.
SUPPORT INDEPENDENT LIT. If you liked this post, please share it & “follow” us for a free online subscription to LiGHT/WATER.
