Ivy Alvarez


auricle, ventricle

sunlight stuns
the drowsy
gritty sand
you depart
or is it me
the flare of my skirt
your open mouth
tell the story
remember the start

that lunar pull
wave motion lulls
shift and sway
my lungs
ninety percent water
breathe in
all the watery years
the blue and the black
the stars

-previously published in Oban


lost flesh

i

here's the bed she lies in
the sheets might as well be snow
she's so cold
the heat disperses above her
the ceiling blankly accepts it
she sinks clean as a stone

ii

when she wakes there's a scar
where a breast used to be
she shows it to me
excoriated and raw
her eyes shine
behind a dam of tears

iii

when we cross the street
she holds onto my hand
as if I was ten again
and things were still to happen

-previously published at MiPoesias


mother, daughter

mother, wife to a beekeeper
treads the path to honey
fat and puffy like pollen
golden legs, intent hands
arms for a cradle
baby in the first year
life at the hive
honey-keeper, memory-hoarder
silver scissors
a little curl between her fingers
a weft of yellow-white silk
on fragile curve of bone
her daughter, unbidden, unlooses for her
curls, locks, braids
takes up the sceptre
of the bee-keeper, her hair
fair, darkens by the year
then lightens, silky pollen
the beekeeper's wife, the gatherer
ribbons, labels each year
reaps gold at the nape of a neck


resurrection

in the morning, in the winter
ice crusts the earth
frost forms on loamy footpaths,
fishbone leaves,
in the shadow of stones.
the cold needles the flesh of cheeks
then the sun turns up, comes around
a heat presses down on the earth ever so lightly
frost beads to water, disperses
lifts in the air, rises
to join the sky
the earth turns, rolls around like a lion caress
edits face directed to the sun
the earth warms
as the temperature rises
by slow degrees

-both poems previously published at The Write Stuff