Saturday Night
We shuffle our traumas like cards
Holding fast with our poker faces
Straight draw. Royal flush.
You're bluffing when we’re all
Holding the same pain in our hands
And trying so hard to keep it from crossing our faces.
You’re betting on nothing
When we all have the same sequential hearts
And blackened spades to our names
And nothing behind our dollar bills.
We’re at a standoff, and try to shake our pain off
Before entering into another round
Against the next person over
Who’s staring back at a King’s lonely face.
Wait. Don’t raise.
Or bluff or gamble your misfortune anymore.
I'll fold into you, as you opt out of this game
And we’ll try again,
Coughing up confessions
Taking laps to the bar and the bedroom
Without another round.
Icarus' Wife
(The Nationalist)
I feel as if sometimes
That I fell into your arms
Like Icarus
Without Daedalus.
Without broken promises
And false charms
Falling into a land like a new birth
A new start on an official piece of paper.
I am a lucky penny
Turned over by the fountain and rushing water
A new time zone and counter-clockwise motions.
Where the moths disregard the candles
And we are able to make our wax wings
In order to take flight
Forgo the freak accidents
And survive the sunlight
Even on the red eye from LA at night.
Sometimes our mistakes
Land us in better place
No one would ever know
The home where they have come from
Without the failure of wax a too-hot sun
Without ox carts and stilted starts
Daddy issues and an ego like Narcissus.
I could have fallen somewhere
Where fate would let me drown
But I am cradled inside
A country, a landscape, an arm.
I have constructed my country’s myth
Like a nationalist, forgoing the romance plot
For another lot of land
Of feathers
And gold rings
Threaded up on fingers.
We together, my dear Icarus
Are making our new wings
Against the afternoon sun.
Our Village Villanelle
My mother taught me Spanish so I would know
How to translate directions without being lead
And the most important phrase, lo siento.*
Allá to aquí. Izquerida as left: I learned where to go
From my cabeza y mano; my hand and my head
My mother taught me Spanish so I would know.
But the construction started. Cars were towed.
I translated the evictions and tickets instead
While uttering the phrase: lo siento.
The guns fired fast and broke our windows
I covered my mouth and went straight to bed.
My mother taught me Spanish so I would know.
Soon, my mother's worry began to show:
"Don't go outside. Don't see your friends."
But she never said the words, lo siento.
When split in two languages, there is no home
And the place I grew up in becomes a dead end
My mother taught me Spanish so I would know
The most important phrase is lo siento.
* Lo siento is “I’m Sorry” in Spanish.
We shuffle our traumas like cards
Holding fast with our poker faces
Straight draw. Royal flush.
You're bluffing when we’re all
Holding the same pain in our hands
And trying so hard to keep it from crossing our faces.
You’re betting on nothing
When we all have the same sequential hearts
And blackened spades to our names
And nothing behind our dollar bills.
We’re at a standoff, and try to shake our pain off
Before entering into another round
Against the next person over
Who’s staring back at a King’s lonely face.
Wait. Don’t raise.
Or bluff or gamble your misfortune anymore.
I'll fold into you, as you opt out of this game
And we’ll try again,
Coughing up confessions
Taking laps to the bar and the bedroom
Without another round.
I feel as if sometimes
That I fell into your arms
Like Icarus
Without Daedalus.
Without broken promises
And false charms
Falling into a land like a new birth
A new start on an official piece of paper.
I am a lucky penny
Turned over by the fountain and rushing water
A new time zone and counter-clockwise motions.
Where the moths disregard the candles
And we are able to make our wax wings
In order to take flight
Forgo the freak accidents
And survive the sunlight
Even on the red eye from LA at night.
Sometimes our mistakes
Land us in better place
No one would ever know
The home where they have come from
Without the failure of wax a too-hot sun
Without ox carts and stilted starts
Daddy issues and an ego like Narcissus.
I could have fallen somewhere
Where fate would let me drown
But I am cradled inside
A country, a landscape, an arm.
I have constructed my country’s myth
Like a nationalist, forgoing the romance plot
For another lot of land
Of feathers
And gold rings
Threaded up on fingers.
We together, my dear Icarus
Are making our new wings
Against the afternoon sun.
Our Village Villanelle
My mother taught me Spanish so I would know
How to translate directions without being lead
And the most important phrase, lo siento.*
Allá to aquí. Izquerida as left: I learned where to go
From my cabeza y mano; my hand and my head
My mother taught me Spanish so I would know.
But the construction started. Cars were towed.
I translated the evictions and tickets instead
While uttering the phrase: lo siento.
The guns fired fast and broke our windows
I covered my mouth and went straight to bed.
My mother taught me Spanish so I would know.
Soon, my mother's worry began to show:
"Don't go outside. Don't see your friends."
But she never said the words, lo siento.
When split in two languages, there is no home
And the place I grew up in becomes a dead end
My mother taught me Spanish so I would know
The most important phrase is lo siento.
* Lo siento is “I’m Sorry” in Spanish.
Evelyn
Deshane's work has appeared in The Fieldstone Review, Hyacinth Noir,
and Absynthe Magazine. In 2013, she was the runner-up for A&U
Magazine's fiction contest. She is also the poetry editor for Prosaic Magazine and has worked on the digital collections of poet P.K. Page. She lives in Canada.
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