Back Suplex

by Clem Flowers

Gravel-scattered hell &

we were blessed to be able

to hold on for even a heartbeat &

you still wonder if

rose, magnolia, and sugar off the blue mountain valley

is enough

to drown out the

anguished smoke signals

of the lazy river of asphalt

all as you try

to put the lilacs

back

in your skull

but the ice age grounds

on the sloped back 40

of the olive grove

still need tending

you hear yesterday’s new promise

drying out in the

mixed maw of kudzu & devil’s ivy

but the cacti & tattered winds

refuse

to yield the floor

to your hope but the

symphony of sugar & starlight

now filling your lungs

puts a velvet bag of pearls

into your chest

Angel’s Landing blooms with all the joy

you found while breaking your back

in the endless heat sink

that is the night

Clem Flowers (They/ Them) is a poet, soft-spoken southern transplant, low rent aesthete, pizza man lover, & dramatic tenor living in a mountain’s shadow in Home of Truth, Utah with their awesome wife & sweet kitty.

Hella queer & Nb poetry editor at Blue River Review, with publication credits including: Olney Magazine, Blue River Review, The Madrigal, Pink Plastic House Journal, Bullshit Lit, Corporeal, Holyflea, Anti-Heroin Chic, & Warning Lines Magazine. author of chapbooks Stoked & Thrashing (Alien Buddha Press,) eating rain// matchstick graveyard (Alien Buddha Press,) & Two Out of Three Falls (Bullshit Lit.) They can be found on Twitter @clem_flowers.