Exulansis
See that white butterfly right there, that one, pieris rapae
perched on the rose bush to pray before gliding over gladiolas?
I want to tell you that’s my Avó come to visit, remind me
that life is suffering and skirmish and strolls through a garden
girdled with beauty. I want to convince you that the dead come back
to watch our back, keep us from stepping in shit twice. With a flick
of its wings, these bug-ghosts save us every day from ourselves.
Don’t you know? Oh, forget it. Forget my wild beliefs and tenuous truths.
Two sweet pups sleep on the couch, cuddled together in a bundle
of fur, the youngest flat on the floor, tongue out like red carpet.
These things you know, you see, you understand.
Marina Carreira (she/they) is a queer Luso-American poet artist from Newark, NJ. She is the author of Tanto Tanto (Cavankerry Press, 2022) and Save the Bathwater (Get Fresh Books, 2018). She has exhibited her art at the Newark Museum, Morris Museum, ArtFront Galleries, West Orange Arts Council, Monmouth University Center for the Arts, among others. Find her on Instagram at @savethebathewater.
Other Works
A Certain Age
by Sai Pradhan
... She decided to write a story ...
A Note from Joshua St. Claire, dated June 21, 2082, to the Editors of The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume 2: 1865 to 2038 (Seventeenth Edition)
by Joshua St. Claire
... Show me roses and rings // breeding nightcolor. Show me a bunting / bill deadwide with stillstill serenade ...