My Multiverses
by Heather Truett
1
I share a house with Juana and Frida.
We drink too many margaritas made
from a green and purple peach
that only buds when watered by
a rejected lover’s tears. We take turns
making the fruit grow.
4
I live alone on a mountain in another
galaxy where the stars are drips
of crystal that dot the sky almost low enough
to climb a ladder and steal
sleep in a hammock of leaves like silk. God is
a river that swerves to visit when the day grows hot.
13
It is the 70s. 1970s? 2570s? Who knows?
Audre and I have a penthouse in New York.
We open our doors to the literary
and brilliant, the artists and the women
who don’t give a damn. Racism
has never existed. Sexism is only
an age-old fantasy of some dead man.
77
I am invited to stay at Steepletop. Edna
says I should call her Vincent. We write
poetry and plays in the garden and no one
ever falls down the stairs. Wine doesn’t make
us drunk and drugs are never needed.
Our brains and bodies are enough.
102
Jael and I run a blacksmith’s forge. We temper
and smelt and wipe the sweat off of foreheads
with the backs of our hands, mold all the metal
with knowing fingers, and never use tools. We
are the instruments, the sun slipping low
to heat our bones so we can hammer.
235
All of Pablo’s poems are about me. You
didn’t know? I seduced him in the twilight,
cast a spell at dawn, drew him from one reality
to mine. Here, all of the poets write only
about the curve of my breast, the angled
elegance of hip bone and clavicle. When I grow
bored I will share them with you.
