Elaine Bleakney
Summer 2024 | Poetry
Four Poems
Son at the Mall
We live in a golden palace where we sip from a golden skull.
Let’s get mango boba and fried rice.
Shoes not for scuffing or wearing too much.
You want me to drop you here alone with Parker.
I want fool’s parsley
a trail, the scar before the balsam starts.
Wands
The baseball bats were made of ash
until the boring beetle arrived. It is a sound.
Ash stands as far west as Oregon slipping from their skins.
Now the bats are maple, harder, less giving.
Some players prefer this feeling.
She taps her phone at night instead of reading.
He fingers a woman without drinking her eyes.
4 AM
Not with song
the owl responds
to the first thread of light.
Calling in her own, my own.
To the idea that the living
need touch: not so, not so.
Find a dark shelf.
All Day Darling
All the happy women
and their totes at the market
parsley rotting in a drawer
All the happy women
a head of parsley parsing
heart of pith
How long can this keep
on: my hatred
springing like a cock
stupid stupid word
ELAINE BLEAKNEY is the author of For Another Writing Back, an avant-memoir, and 20 Paintings by Laura Owens, an ekphrastic conversation. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina.