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What’s Still Buried in a Field of Poison Ivy Above the City
by Rebekkah Leigh LaBlue 


​Every summer makes of me an unspoken terror—  
             the kind that hand-combs hair until oily and treads
bare-pawed through the gutter,
 
                        that collages iridescent beetles onto spiderwebs
             and later collects the carcasses for armor—skirts
                       that crunch when I pull boys down in quilts
 
of highway larkspur. How to reach the age
             where I stop saying boys? Through the years
I’ve acquired only synonyms: backpack
 
                       with broken strap, unsheathed razor clam
             whirligiging at the bottom of a drawer.
                       What is there to show for myself but a hunger
           
I’ll never be sure is my own. I kept photos
             of the boy who assaulted me
for three years. I don’t want to explain why—but
 
                       everyone offers their theories. I direct them
             to my other body: telephone booth
                       clown-car crowded with warblers.
 
Here is a voicemail: pain isn’t real if not felt
             to the roots of every archived bedpost: they say
hang from my neck an ivory doll’s hand
 
                       on a gold chain, always reaching for my collar—  
             my collar a bone aching relief map. Find me
                       where the thin air of altitude thwarts growth
 
of three-pronged ivy. Below sea level,
             where depth kneads my language
into one of superlatives: men. Or into one that instructs
 
                       how to discern reclaim from cope
             ​in the inflection of a magician—  ​ 
                       like the most obvious answer involves
 
a mile-long, houndstooth handkerchief and
             a coat sleeve. Like something good can still come
from all of this, if I just keep my eyes fixed and open.

Picture
​Rebekkah Leigh LaBlue is a queer poet and ornithologist pseudo-native to Asheville, North Carolina by way of Long Island. The recipient of scholarships from the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference, her work can be found in Glass: A Journal of Poetry and Figure 1. She reads poetry for The Adroit Journal and holds birds in hand @rllablue.

Spring 2020
ISSN 2157-8079
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