something about us. Kelsey Isaacks Pousson
contents.
Morning
4
About a man
5
I was satisfied with blue until I met you
6
Rosa acicularis in Fall
7
Could I be your color tv?
8
I am the fat woman
9
Do not desire me, imagine me
10
Rosa acicularis in Spring
11
Author’s notes
13
dear taylor,
Morning Not to be confused with Mourning
Morning is heavy, weighted, light thrusting in through the windows unwelcome. Unwelcome like a morning person’s obnoxiousness mistaken for perkiness. Perkiness your morning eyes and your morning voice muffle in these morning sheets. Sheets smudged with black paint from the winter I could no longer stand the white walls. Walls that you repaired to keep us warm the same winter and every one after. After morning comes evening which is much like morningheavy, weighted, unwelcomeunless I have you too.
About a man
Just west of Austin my sweetheart and I lease a tiny, crooked house. Through the window’s time warped glass down into the dry lake bed (that is no longer dry, but flooded) the wood of our cracked dock creaks and settles in the dirt (that is no longer dirt, but thick mud). A breeze weaves through the tall grass. My love’s deep, hollow ramblings resound along wood floorboards, up flaked walls. The vibrations hover in space: E.B. White’s miraculous cobwebs.
Why did you do all this for me? the pig asked her.
I wove webs for you, she answered because I like you.
The spider fell in love with the pig.
I was satisfied with blue until I met you,
Rayleigh scattering; 470 nanometers; but now I want your deepest indigo; 500 drops of sapphire behind your midnight voice whispering about the blue light seeping from the tv screen; another 300 of what you dream for us sitting beside our glass lake. I don’t care about Saint Louis’ bleu except that it suits you who hung the hammock above the roof so you could be closer to the God of Egypt coloring his skin midnight to fly invisible across the night sky that he made blue in the first place. Shaped by Han hands, dried, painted, glazed, baked, leaves soaked in water, fermented, pressed, dried, a forbidden Indian drug. I was satisfied with blue until I met you; Now boring blue just won’t do. I fell for your blues that painted your melancholy woman with truth. I fell for your cobalt that kissed Mary’s skin ultramarine, that flooded Saint Denis’ world in the finest, the most beautiful of blues reduced to powder, but you don’t lose your lustre.
Rosa acicularis in Fall
Every day will begin with the sun scorching my pale skin or the cold hearted rain drowning my desire to stand again. I’ll tumble down onto the littered ground. I’ll foster the grief with every rotting leaf. I’m trying to find a better way to say I’m thinking about getting out. I'm thinking about standing proud while everything around comes crashing down. Maybe there's something new behind Winter’s blues.
Could I be your color tv? Would you grow to love my static in between? Would you stare endlessly into my screen? I need your sleepless soul, need you locked in my lackluster lull. Could I be your color tv? And if I went unplugged, or worse yet- unlovedknow that I'll never be beyond your control. Let me proudly present if you really meant our gaze to remain undulled. Let me be your triple thrill that cries and laughs at your wandering will. You are getting sleepy; now look into my careful screening; close your eyes and see that I will always be your color tv.
I am the fat woman smiling sweetly at my fat man simply because he smiles back at the dog in the grass with the bugging eyes and at the bellowing bullfrog flopping his flipper feet in a paper lily pad waltz just to 1-2-3 our lips into smiles. I offer my fat man a glass of water simply because he looks parched like the ballroom bullfrog with no wet lilies but paper circles instead which flip over to form perfect white cartoon peepers for the dog to pop our lips into smiles. I am the fat woman and my fat man land locks the green dog into green flippers to honor the bewitched bullfrog’s slow and tender and strange ballet that my fat man imagined only to brisÊ my lips into the smile he remembers.
[after Mary Szybist] Do not desire me, imagine me as peach: fat and sweet with soft skin meant to be broken by your teeth as pumpkin: still fat and no longer sweet as our first October nights but lovingly hollowed by your hands as earth: that buried an apple tree like the one you planted for my birthday that buried me in you like a soft spring seedling
Rosa acicularis in Spring
Each day will start with the sun brightening my dark heart or the warm mist ending my sorrow with a wet kiss. I'll witness the births as saplings sprout from Mother Earth who gives her everything each year to bring the spring. I don't know how to be me without my misery. But I’m thinking about sticking around, about welcoming the season, about finding a reason to say I am going to stay.
Author’s note on the images
Cover image: wild rose, first gift, 2010 Dedication image: letters from San Antonio, 2014 Last image: rings exchanged, 2011
end.