Lucía M. Polis's Blog, page 2

Upon the Occasion of the Exalted Arrival of Capitana Omnia

Inspired by Maggie Bell
For Haylin Moore

Now ends the winter of our discontent,
Whose terminus foretells the impish sun.
Recall the debts of words that weren't yet spent,
And set your mind to all you once began.
The blossoms exit their erosive daze.
They shyly straighten out their sepalets,
And slyly flounce their petals for your gaze
And nudge their stanzas through stigmatas' clefts.
Your spring is here: first self, first bloom, first truth.
Now rest your weary frame—here's your repose—
And watch with wonder, just as you inhale,
The opening of your uncommon rose.
Then see the firmament to each sense bring
The queer and tender, loving touch of spring.

March of the Bearded Lady

For CJ Braxton

When I’d go out in public as a man,
I on the whole was quite invisible.
The world was silent on account of me,
holding its tongue out of disinterest, tact.

These days, I find, I am quite rather free
to compliment the women passersby,
who do not fear ornate hermaphrodites,
and so as often might return the grace.

Yet I can still be taken by surprise
by some odd man intent on stating facts
such as when—Faggot! (then hang up the phone)—
when I might wish him, “Have a lovely day!“

Or, take tonight, when some man in the park
had talked at length how much he’s unimpressed
to see me sport a skirt, perhaps a dress,
and then some teen my flag of doubt unfurled.

Is it obscene to be thus seen? Perhaps.
He had a solid point—I do go, girl.

After Dickinson IV

Inspired by Samantha

I’m Everyone! Who are you?
Are you - Everyone - too?
Then there’s just one of us!
Go tell! They’d banish us the same!

How dreary - to be - just Someone!
How frozen - like a Deer -
To grunt your name - in dying light -
To a resentful Ear!

I'm not Afraid of Mirrors Anymore

I chuckle in my father's voice, and I
look like my mother and grandmother both,
but so much better.

What will you see when you will peer into
my mummy's eyes within my skull? Perhaps
the same wry smile, but


never, no, the same familiar cruelty,
to which you'll never inure as you lick
your wounds. Reflections show

only what eyes can see at some odd angle;
refraction makes the point, expecting
injury's return, and yet,


I don't return it. I weep, I sweep, I
do the laundry, and I clean the rust. I
move, and motion is

the only thing I trust. I turn the lights off
on most days, and other times, I dim them
and I lock the door.

When the Earthquake Hit

When the earthquake hit,
Cappelbaum found herself
in flagrante delicto,
hand on the fulcrum
yellow skirt hiked up,
eyes frantically searching the room.

Her very first thought was,
This is what I get
for daring to disturb
the universe. She then closed
her eyes and waited
for the carrying out of it.

But nothing happened—
even as the wave of sound
swept through the living area
with a very loud BRDRRRRRRRRMMM.
Cappelbaum carefully,
gratefully let out

a breath she has held in
for forty-three long years.
The house, she noted calmly,
was not torn in twain.
The earth did not open her loins
to swallow her whole,

bones and all. She sat
in silence for a moment.
She listened. And then,
she leaned her lever on her ful
crum
and moved the world.

After Williams II

I have taken
the blouse
that was in
the dresser

and which
you were probably
saving
for cocktails

Don’t hate me
it froze my nipples
so cold
and so hard

I am sitting in the parking lot.

I am sitting in the parking lot
and I want to see you.


I am sitting in the parking lot
and I want to see you
and I want you to text me back
after I text you.


I am sitting in the parking lot
and I want to see you
and I want you to text me back
after I text you

and I don’t even
know your name.



I am sitting in the parking lot
and I want to see you
and I want you to text me back
after I text you

and I don’t even know your name
but I know how fast
I suddenly feel the heat that a poet
might call apprehension.


I am sitting in the parking lot
and I want to see you
and I want you to text me back
after I text you

and I don’t even know your name
but I know how fast
I suddenly feel what a poet
might call trepidation.

and I think it’s interesting
that I feel it now
even though you do not exist.


I am sitting in the parking lot
and I want to see you
and I want you to text me back
after I text you

and I don’t even know your name
but I know how fast
I suddenly feel what a poet
might call habituation.

and I think it’s interesting
that I feel it now,
even though you do not exist;
and still, I love you.



I am sitting in the parking lot
and I want to see you
and I want you to text me back
after I text you

and I don’t even know your name
but I know how fast
I suddenly think of what poets
might call disappointment

and I think it’s interesting
that I don’t feel it now,
even though you do not
return my calls.


I am sitting in the parking lot
and I want to see you
and I want you to text me back
after I text you

and I don’t even know your name
but I know how fast
I suddenly feel what a poet
might call anticipation

and I think it’s interesting
that I am beginning
to feel it a little less.


I am seeing in the parking lot
and I want to know you
and I want you to love me back
after I know you

and I don’t even text your fast
but I text how feel
name what poet might call ekphrasis
but I know better.



I am sitting in the parking lot
and I want to see you
and I want you to text me back
after I text you

and I am not ready to drive home
or know where to go.


I am sitting in the parking lot
and I want to see you
but I don’t want you
to text me anymore.


I am sitting in the parking lot
and I want to see you.

The Taste of Snow

Oh, how I love to taste fresh-fallen snow!
—say this into a crowded room, then wait.


The person who would dare to ask if you
would eat the yellow snow���this is your foe.
Them you shall punish there and then; expel
the heartless miscreant out from the polis.

Then go and fix your broken maidenhead;
repair your shattered innocence with bliss
when, stood before the biggest window there,
you’d give the night your hand and seal your love


for gentle snowflakes
with a tender kiss.

Cappelbaum among the Connoisseurs

Finally, Cappelbaum finds parking.
It’s so far from the gallery,
so she drapes her coat close, and goes,
as the wind bothers her hair.
She wonders whether this one might be
a five on the Beaufort Scale.

Athwart the ravaged street, she finds lit windows.
Cappelbaum comes inside, removes her coat,
smoothes down her hair with frozen fingers,
takes in the gathered lot, the drinks in rows.
She meditates: Well, could this be a six?
Who cares? Who knows?


The man in the tailored suit turns about,
shows a twisted grimace, agony meaning,
It is so nice to see you, eh? Windy!
Everyone sips their wine—red or white.
Cappelbaum’s dorsum does not feel right.
It ratchets up, dolorous,

tooth by bone tooth. Now, she wishes to bellow
and rage, shriek with banshees. She knows
all too well the hollowness of such
gatherings, the pointlessness of inquiring.
Cappelbaum assesses herself once again.
The Beaufort’s at ten.


So she drapes herself: first, the scarf,
then shoulder bag, coat—sepulchre and shroud.
The woman who is chewing much too loud;
the man who’s here just to caress a thigh.
Did you know when it hits thirteen, you
simply die, in hand a cocktail napkin?

But the wind? She understands her well,
why she must lash out at each passerby.
Mercy? That’s for Venusian merchants.
Cappelbaum crawls (between the pictures
on the wall), leaving behind the figures,
the crowded exhibition hall.

The Noble Art of Becoming Nothing

I’m grateful to Samantha for unknowingly giving this piece its title.

For Nina Sloan—
lacrimæ loquuntur

O, what ignominy of chance
’tis to awake far in advance
and make yourself a bonnie lass
in toil before the looking glass

and there, despite your every wish,
to fashion of yourself a dish,
and groom and preen and dream and plan,
only to end where you began

when you unmake yourself before
a man.