FROM CALABASAS, FINGERS CROSSED

Tara Boswell

First published in Salt Hill 31 (2013).

just like my father playing chicken on the railroad tracks
my bomb is a ticking womb
up and up where
january mountains bully the road thinner
swanky homes prick the sun’s
heavy setting and soups the valley
pink where we reverse
our hatchback to the cliff’s very lip
where the guardrail must be out
we hang from the trunk
a view you won’t find in chicago
and coyotes howl so close
my heart signals it like
when I glance over my shoulder
on still city blocks and still
I wish hard to see this
pack snapping on through
this itch for a violent proximity
is my hotheaded genetics
kicking in the mad ladders of my blood
and of my blood
you laugh coyotes
when I say my womb is a ticking bomb
like my grandmother’s hollering
these lines are a sticky thundering
through anxious gulps of brandy
and I suppose we could just
tuck ourselves into the trunk
and pull the door closed
from the inside
I slow for handmade
footsteps behind me
eating up space
it’s the moon’s turn now
and you love me
like a shovel in dry dirt

Tara Boswell’s work is published in PANK, Parcel, ILK, Heavy Feather Review, and elsewhere.