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