It was the summer of
‍runny eyes - you
thought I’d said
why don’t we get high
and lick each other’s eyeballs
for 15 minutes? I forget
the alternative.
Think about it:
when you walk first
through snow
I follow
printlessly  ghost
but
when I go first
your walking prints me out  ghost AGAIN!
Scale, perspective: another things
I don’t fucking understand
maybe. There’s a lot of sometimes
in me.
The school of fish
flipping
crossing us out
and in again.

‍Being hot is holding another person
‍Inside we’re all miscellaneous, really, etc.,
(I wish you’d said mischievous)
but
I don’t know
if I’m sad
or just need to open a window—
what am I doing
that you’ve seen before?
This pose here?  Trying to capture
  the gemmy light of August
  I’m limited
      limited!Damselflies and
twoness. The other day
I swear I was both people
folding the sheets
of our bed.
Is what I say
what you need?
Oddball, maybe, origin-
shook, you know,
I’m measuring us
for bodacious boxes.

‍Sleeping with dum-dums in hair
‍I dreamt
Organic Basics
had a deep sale
I was so mad—
you, driving as drunk as that
all the frames the wrong size for framing
Duck, Duck, Goose—
I drove the pebbled sidewalk
drunk too, I got out
wept as my mom
disclosed she’d cut a record with my
hidden sister. The one who’d inherited
the voice!

A Cabrera's poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in The New Guard, Brain,Child Magazine, Colere, Acentos Review, The Berkeley Fiction Review, Best Travelers' Tales 2021 Anthology, Mer, Deronda, and other journals. Her short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Award and adapted for stage by the Bay Area Word for Word Theater Company. She writes, teaches, dances and ride bikes in San Francisco, but not always in that order.

Arielle Walsh is a poet living in Fort Collins with her tall person and three cats.