GIRLFRIEND
from Odalisque In Pieces
by Carmen Giménez-Smith
Versified, we took pills and ideals. The backlit of the hills' blue against the sky plus
the creamy soignée element flared around us. Under dutiful watch, almighty christ.
So some day I was walking with Dawn. The drills gone for Sunday. My duress was
valentiney, not the deliverable package.
Torrential downplay of the giggling kind. I am sad to see you go. Then the humpbacked
lady with her such trying walked past. We walked too, but not the limping kind.
Not the body failure way. Limbed as fish or tree. Wired for longitude. We were just
loving the grand early-ness of walk. Some do. Some do.
Coincidence then with such a bomb shudder. Such like in none to see. The better part of
it in the neck and gut. The ground was as still as always but the shift made us look,
for heaven came to earth to dimple our reverie. For that when two girls crossed came one,
old. For that peculiar nod knowing where we were.
Such fatuous noise we were, but also necessary. Killing time with cigarettes. Filling in
the blade okay. Then was it.
Carmen Giménez Smith is the author of a memoir and four poetry collections— including Milk and Filth, finalist for the 2013 NBCC award in poetry. She co-edited Angels of the Americlypse: New Latin@ Writing, published by Counterpath Press. A CantoMundo Fellow, she teaches in the creative writing programs at New Mexico State University while serving as the publisher of Noemi Press.