2021 LAR Poetry Award Winner: Nellie Le Beau
Devotional
after covid
I prepare my heart for
you. I unlash my ankles
from my bone, interlace
spine and rib. The same magic
that found you, replaced
you. Willow reeds, green
shoots held under swamp
mud, the beginning
of things, laid
open. I attach mollusks
the way some girls
carry razors; hidden
in my mouth like rain.
The flesh of the world repeats —
night heron fishes
in daylight, dives
through the vegetable water
resurfaces, searching still
on its porch scanning
ripples, signs of life.
We are built to
squander things. Every
thing, the years between death
and diagnosis, the last call
before the supermarket
shooting. What was it you wanted –
eggs, milk, the feel
of your lover’s face lying
on the linoleum floor.
It’s never enough. Poppies
split for their saddest part, the pause
between a doctor’s voice
and death. The last time
we touched, in rain, I see
us outside the café and again —
our last talk. Your eyes chemical, not
yours, moving beyond
the door, left open.
If I lived with you
as your wife, the last
woman you loved, do I say
widow, husband, grief.
What are the names to give
us, one above the ground
and one below.
out in it
i touch my arm and pretend
im touching yours, at the end, on your couch
in bushfire country, la county
the week they lifted
restrictions on particulate
matter so crematoriums could
work harder, you said
ashes were on your windshield, in your
lungs. they found you upright.
i could say thats how you lived but
that wasn’t always true. at your wake
women fainted, theyd held you
too, but not as long as i did. its a prize
i wasn’t looking for, and was. i rub my arm
gently and you say
dont look at me. our last time
your eyes wide, tumors
pressing your veins, your
skull bare, i couldnt hear
your words— what were
you saying, what stories. i thought
next time, ill listen better, you said dont
worry my hair will grow back
and i believed you. they buried
you that week, carried you
through 46 states across
corn fields, and fallen cities
scrub brush and neon signs. these days
i stop looking. i trace ash and
stem, wild to the morning.
Extinction
I am lying
with you/in the Cycladic
I am lying
in Dimitsana/next to the museum/
that houses your ancestors’ bones./ In Zion
and south to Flagstaff/ we lie/ in Death Valley
and then/ in the basement/
On 11th Street./your thumbs attach
to benzene/atoms excruciate/ collapse/
your waist/expands/and I
am silent. On a satellite call/
in winter/your skull is bare/
we could talk all night
you say/ I hang up/
they find you/
and I/answer
the phone/have you heard
they say/in chorus
I watch the tape/
of you/made slender/
hollowed out/a bare
mirror/the girls/
who loved you/bathed
your face/and I
still lying/trace
eyelash, ankle/lying
still.
Nellie Le Beau’s debut poetry collection Inheritance (Puncher & Wattmann) will be published in late 2021. Nellie is a Bread Loaf Scholar and PhD candidate. www.nelebeau.com
21 February 2022
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