HEARTLAND HEARTLAND HEARTLAND
E
nda Donovan
Miranda Donovan
© 2022 Miranda Donovan. Miranda Donovan Heartland All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmited in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permision of the publisher or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Angency.
Miranda Donovan
HEARTLAND University of Maryland Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House
CONTENTS she who crushes the serpent orange ridge heartland virgin del pilar dixieland supernova glitter rot death to the lacrosse captain red enevelope into bloodstream aqueduct of memory backwoods spirit crossing
9 11 12 14 15 17 18 19 20 21
HEARTLAND MIRANDA DONOVAN
SHE WHO CRUSHES THE SERPENT the duration of this vowel is the time it took for you to run through the cornfi lds, arms stretched out above to support the sky. the moon beats against your olive skin and below your feet, the stalks are trampled, sinking down to make love to the dirt, running their silk tongues over your soles as you crush them and the juice of the leaves seeps through the fi lds— a serpent who watches silently as you move, with strain across this whispering labyrinth staring you into the ground, pupils: mucked and mired. what is a vowel but the rustling in the blind spot of your eye an orbital gesture inward the swooning arc of a crop circle—
9
MIRANDA DONOVAN
as you pass, the moon splashes onto the backs of your calves, legs of moonshine and earth, of serpent spit and corn blood. the soil rises to swallow you but you are moving too fast and the sky too heavy a burden to hold the weight of it caves the vowel buckles the serpent lifts ts head, fli ks its sweet corn silk tongue and the next consonant ignites— a fi e spreading through the fi lds, blazing through the night.
10
HEARTLAND
ORANGE RIDGE it is always at night, when i fi d my way back through the pines—to the hilltop whose trail is overgrown with honeysuckle vines, pale blue in the moonlight, silver tongues that coat my legs in nightsky; to the farmhouse, a beacon white against the night with little fi es within, orange sparks that vault themselves into the sky. the smoke makes its slow ascent. i fli ker under the dark tree cover as the mountain becomes a moment, fading. another place i can’t go back to, as they always are—burning through this one night that goes on forever, aimless but disguised as the flames that will swallow me alive.
11
MIRANDA DONOVAN
HEARTLAND it is the rural landscapes that are the marrow within my bones, the day my grandparent’s cornfi ld burned to ash, the day the dirt became new. it is the trailer park in my blood, the magnolia roots that grip my tongue. heartland is the place where the road ends, the most southern tip of the state, the place where the chesapeake turns undeniably red. i’ve swam to virginia before from here, brackish water in my lungs, jellyfish at my heels. heartland is the place that birthed me; out i came, covered in blood and membrane and marsh. i’ve come to realize i feel safest while in the arms of the countryside. the drives through the small towns with ramblers that line the streets, the dirt roads named after great grandmothers and beloveds: this is where i am at peace. yes, cities may take more breaths but their lungs are foul, caving in on themselves from the rot of decay. but the hills? the flatlands? the creeks? a beautiful melody, more alive than your fi gertips at the piano, more alive than racing through the night air, more alive than the clock counting to your last exhale. 12
HEARTLAND
i feel the birds circling sometimes, when i am home at last. they don’t call out to me, for my name doesn’t read well in the south. it is heavy like molasses, ridden with the viscosity of ten thousand histories. don’t slur it, i say, but i don’t think heartland can hear me over her violet slumber. i crawl home to heartland each night, tired. she clips my bumble bee wings and at last, i fi d sleep.
13
MIRANDA DONOVAN
VIRGIN DEL PILAR every day there’s the bay, every day, every night, once, it was the island: greenhouse of dreams: nightingales, poinsettias, sugar sweat. we left in he night, seven years of wine drunk on the terracotta steps, blue eyed boy with the frog. we’d come up, and there it was, the flat tops: a golden trailer park: static, a cornfi ld on fi e backlit by the chesapeake. thirty years above it, every day, every night, there’s a daughter, there’s a spanish name Miranda clawing at the starry sea of memory: like an apparition caught in marble, like the flash of a knife, like the sand we couldn’t sink fast enough into.
14
HEARTLAND
DIXIELAND SUPERNOVA in the beginning, i was eager to run home. cattail fi gers reaching out to the embrace of a structure hidden amongst the marsh, fi ding solace in the voids and spaces that fill a childhood. (running since birth) from the beginning, i knew to fail would be to drown in the mud of my mother’s eyes. magnolia sores would grow on my lips, my camellia eyelashes would fall out, all of my roots destroyed. (failure a nebula for the end of love)
15
MIRANDA DONOVAN BOOK AUTHOR
after the beginning, i swore to be the best. rising each morning, sunset streaks faded and frayed, going and going until i burned to ash, only to be released amongst the cornfi lds at nightfall. (being until imploding) in the end, i’ve found to let them down is to light them up.
16
HEARTLAND
GLITTER ROT i still brush my canines at night erase the lush green from my gums and hack up blood down the sink, still exit the bathroom and become undone on the bed in a white nightgown that is perpetually backlit by many nights of running out of the rambler and through the street, slick and suburban— no, this is small-town america on the face of it where the graves on the corner next to the video store glow at night, mossy and jade, and i fi d myself there, the cold moon air splashed upon the backs of my calves, crying out through exit wounds, groveling in the dirt with blood in my teeth and serpent eyes above that watch, frozen, from their tomb stay, husband-and-wife gray, like the runoff iver that fli kered along the asphalt banks, through the town to the rambler, back to the bathroom and the white nightgown— i come out of the wake, coughing up a pink toilet cover, now waterlogged with green and under the hum of the video store blocks away, my canines shimmer, one long exposure ray that carries through night after night
17
MIRANDA DONOVAN
DEATH TO THE LACROSSE CAPTAIN smack and smear
back pressed into the jeep horn
20,000 league between
choked in my own driver’s seat
we could be buried together
be present
in too close
lick my ear while you’re at it
swallow the storm
in the parking lot of the bowling alley
6’5”, it’s perfect
porch light, lean down, kiss goodnight
strung out on nicotine
i buy the alchol, know i shouldn’t
we park at the marina
stars dip in and out of marsh weeds
tongue meridians along our longitudes we return to the high school tussle in the turf
another pass through you didn’t know me then
two vessels spun out under stadium lights
bore through my skin
the bonewhite of a trailer park beneath
someone cast a spell
on the front porches in this town
because after that night
the sky aches red
ghost boy, sex cyborg
the last love story i’ll ever get
dark mode in the sailing town bar
gin & tonic hatchet
held my face in your hands
let me look at you a second
i bury you when i’m done
enjoy fucking maggots
crawl out of that grave you dug life is short but here 18
and i will put you right back in it and we all love each other
you are not forgiven
HEARTLAND
RED ENEVELOPE INTO BLOODSTREAM after re-creation over water by Stella Lei i fish for my hands on weekends, baiting lines with numbing cream because they remember more than i do. see: every palm is a net of lifelines. every body keeps the score. come monday, i swim into each bay—each life—neutralized, distilled. in bay 17, here—a fluorescent-ringing skeleton. one: i cover her legs in sheet ghost, not a promise but an offering. something to drink? two: i pour myself over ice, cut with ginger ale, hands sparking on the exchange. three: gemzar abraxane ambrosia—i do the connecting, hooking, sucking, pumping. how i try to free this woman from the folding-in occurring. now, i reel in origami, blood work unfurling petals towards the sun. i leave her with love pricked neuropathy and cast the ghosts that came before into sails. she fades out before me, a paper wish released into water, spilling koi fish in reverse.
19
MIRANDA DONOVAN
AQUEDUCT OF MEMORY at 3, i swim alongside the sting ray shadows in the headlights, splashing in and out of my mother’s grasp as she drives. at 10, i wade through my holding patterns to the rhythm of fear, crawling into a billboard flashing an amber alert at midnight. at 13, i become a cult leader, reaching as far beach town, delaware. i surrender my following in an ihop parking lot, hands raised. at 15, i am a cornerstore fl ating at sea, diet coke plastic in my aisled bowels, neon orange lapping at star ink dew. a carp fl ps through the front doors. at 17, i peel my red eyes back to see the moon as i drive over the bay bridge, crimson x’s blinking in the rearview mirror, rain fl ck blur. at 19, i whisper snakehead in my dreams. i am completely alone, or so i think. i wake up in different bogs, lily pads rooting in my lungs, moss soaked. at 21, i convulse with swarms of fi eflies. i d ownproof my skull, the cavities already waterlogged. i lie green in tide pools and crawl with ghost crabs.
20
HEARTLAND
BACKWOODS SPIRIT CROSSING she slides / a mason jar of pondwater / across the termite-writhing table to me / centipede legs fl ating / on the surface / of this standingwater mosquito nest out on haint blue porch / we divide / the eggs between us / over swigs of moonshine marsh / breaking witching hour into shards / slicing our palms / to bleed out ghostlight / a river we cannot cross i pass the jar back / watching from the parasites burrowed in my eyes / it is only when ensnared between worlds are we able / to drink from this appalachian rainshadow
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