I won’t be able to make it to the cemetery today; I’m lowkey annoyed,
and the concrete faces in black wool remind me of my own skin,
and how I couldn’t bag it and give it away
Haven’t my aunts always told me I look maudlin in dark shades?
Yellow is a better look. If we’re being honest, I want the sun
to split the pines behind the mausoleum, teeter the
doleful gravestones like dominoes, and plow into this buried heart
Hydrogen has always been my color. I’m sure Mom’s straight, white
femur would understand
My Brother Was a Bomb
I surveil his ignition hands,
puckered by bloodline, touch
the memories steep with pain:
when he dunked my head
between swamp jaws,
tucked me into
a Boston Crab in the hotel pool,
drowned himself
in gasoline and struck
a match. And I try to picture
that grinning summer
we jumped
like mullet in and out
of hose-filled barrels,
the hot pavement hissing
as water slapped
in escape. I swam then
with a time bomb, and
called him bubby
because I couldn’t pronounce
brother.
Lannie Stabile (she/her), a queer Detroiter, often says while some write like a turtleneck sweater, she writes like a Hawaiian shirt. A finalist for the 2019/2020 Glass Chapbook Series and semifinalist for the Button Poetry 2018 Chapbook Contest, she is usually working on new chapbook ideas, or, when desperate, on her neglected YA novel. Works are published/forthcoming in Pidgeonholes, Glass Poetry, 8 Poems, Okay Donkey, Honey & Lime, and more. Lannie currently holds the position of Managing Editor at Barren Magazine and is a member of the MMPR Collective. She was thrice nominated for Best of the Net 2019. Twitter handle: @LannieStabile