Poem by Cora Walker

Author’s Note: “I feel like there are two times I’m most drawn to writing poetry: when I’m in the woods at dusk, and when I am inconsolably sad. ‘Pulse’ was created by the latter. It’s a collection of fragments in response to a tragedy that standard prose or an enraged Facebook post failed to help me express. As disjointed as these little poems were, I found a map through my own grief, and they became stanzas. I think of this piece as a testimony and a promise equally, and I hope it can help in some small way in an increasingly uncertain world.”

i. premonition
That night I dreamed I was on a beach
With airships above the city
and bunkers in the sand
as I gazed toward infinite blue
at my back:
Cement poised for slaughter
Glass geysers all around me
All I could do was stand and —

When I woke I heard the news.

ii. arrhythmia
The club at night
Concert hall
Base replaces
heartbeat, an
Audio pacemaker

iii. wrath
Chew off the tongue in one bite
Swallow it whole
Leave it heavy in your stomach
Esophagus aching
You will no longer be hungry
Neither can you
Taste the blood
as it pours
Through a bone-white sieve

iv. memorial song
I love the time of year
When I can drive into a storm cloud
From sunshine
Not even you can take that away.

You can kill us,
what remains is that which
Outlives us
Light, and sound and we will —
until the last of us withers —
remember this with our bodies.

Intermission
After the Calamity
may I be ultimately sky-bound
or buried in the earth
Crushed bones pink with marrow
Undistinguished from pale ceramic
In honesty.

v. fear
Chest pressed into my bed
edging my finger over Bone
feeling my heart through
My ribcage
like a clock

vi. rage, again
A year’s worth of mean
gathered in my lipids
and was stored there
It’s summer now
and it’s coming out

vii. loss is an old friend
We all know the
taste of
Gold coins under tongues
A world where we could survive
But what was dear to us couldn’t

viii. a queer atheist prays
I hope
I pray?
Yes —
Yes, I pray
That my friend
Always believes
Life
Is worth living

ix. acceptance
Take comfort, for —
in Americana,
Rivers take people away
The mountains beckon
Heaven awaits
and the Worthy are called home

CORA WALKER is a writer, canon bisexual, MFA candidate, critic, optimist, and word peddler.