Caitlin Levy's Portfolio

If you care to invade this lonesome
summer, climb through my window and
gawk you’ll think I look clownish
warm oatmeal on my face, chunks
slick with dead skin. the cool water after is
to treat the emptiness—

looming, awakening me even when
there is only quiet and the thick heat.

& it’s the season for that clumsy heartbreak
I rub my eyes to forget the brief feeling
of her palms but the recollection
arrives like a scene from some film, captions
radiating soft light:
[Your grilled cheese fell on the grass!]

I toss fruit into her mouth//watch
the spit & juice drip.

Even memories aren’t enough to fill these
naked days, left by the absence of
. . . things? Anything would suffice,
even a postcard with smudged ink or
European lemonade wrinkling it:
I’m as restless as those moths,
fluttering in the nighttime also swatted
away by my Mom, my cutoffs are “too short,”

but my sweat is guttering like my
thighs rain.

I’m small as the moths—
at least momentarily. I guess
let it be for now.

I. I saw two hands in
the paper, masked lips//each
man Mr. Ocean.

II. No name could hold both,
surname encoded by hand,
by sway of tide, O

III. fraying ocean swells//
by moonlight-- from ocean comes
flesh, such fire, their name.

IIII. They were born before
the sun could trace the black sea,
as a dark sky rang

V. ‘Mr. Ocean, hear!’
Lend me your light, life-giving,
& I will give you all mine.

VI. The clouds mourn their sea--
rain held in two lips, in skin
soft against the sky

VII. Imagine two eyes,
wet by blossoms, salt, its scent,
bursting at their necks. . .

VIII. two men, through deserts,
thirst for a droplet-cool tongue,
come upon water.

VIIII. Lapping waves, the joy,
the life-giving water and
life breathing beneath.

X. In view, their long hands
sweeping against the ocean,
man Mr. Ocean.

I. I saw two hands in
the paper, masked lips//each
a sure reminder

XI. We are found in light
Brush of darkening sea, we
They swallowed the big

Sun whole in love, We//

They wrote a new history

This Earth, Mr. Ocean.

I’m trying to restrain myself like I’m
mulch wrapped in rope, and I’m
meeting you halfway but//

there’s wet concrete on my tongue.

I don’t want to count to ten or wallow
in the thickness of my patience
if it means I’m wrong— then,

how could I justify yelling at you?

saying those things, a lot of “ck,” I mean,
you— all the poets know it’s cacophony,
but I didn’t do it on purpose. . . if I could
just punch your mouth & watch the burnt
flowers making you red tumble out
All your explanations scatter like sticky pollen

“Don’t go there, I will—”

Maybe we just shouldn’t have said hello.