How I Became a Nereid

How I Became a Nereid


I.
What was it like for you, little
nymph, when that sun god plunged in
your waters, the eternal
father of horizon, his flaming hand
holding your delicate foot; did your skin
burn as you lay on the sand?

II.
a waterbed will absorb most anything an embar
rassed teenager open mouth pleading under his 24yearold
body pushing me down to sinking every movement
a gentle undulation my face pressing into damp low
I’ve stopped breathing.

III.
Andromeda’s stroke is slow and even.
We are in the same ballet company. I call out
to her- river water rushing in my mouth.
I cough and spit, “I can’t swim anymore.”
Paul turns to me. He is a senior.
“Roll over on your back.” Melted ice flows
from mountains into my muscles. I am
floating. The sky is gray.
I rise from the Snake river palms open.
Andromeda’s leg is against Paul’s.
They lie on the sand.

IV.
I am restless tonight; the bed creaks as I rise;
when I return you rub your toes along
my arches, dancer’s feet once, ten
years now I am twenty-four and feeling you
suck your breath, suck your breath in deeper
sleep, you move your feet, you tread water.


Copyright Kristina Coker Morgan, 1997

Warm Summer

Warm Summer


Waiting at a bus stop
along a four lane residential street
I am smoking
a cigarette I am holding on
to a metal pole for the bus
stop lined with holes it is

not shiny Filling
out forms for two and a half hours I
left lines blank
a last name of someone who proved to me
that I am not dead
in my belly I feel a silent foot

pressed against
the wall of my stomach I have not had food
in two days Cars
rush by I am the only one
on this street standing
my hands pressed on my round belly





Copyright Kristina Coker Morgan, 1995

Dreams

Dream of Sand Dunes
Day holds me up like a stick.
From a small room, I can see
silver foil on the ceiling and
concrete speckled floor.
You are in bed, or in a house
somewhere, or covered
in dirt, suffocating. Do you know

this desk lamp is on my face
every day. I lie in bed
and think of smoke rising,
my throat tightening into blackness—
coal, or jagged rock.
You hold this in
the palm of your hand, open
some nights, for me,
dark river rising
out of dry hills.




Dream of Holding Hands
Orange blue
clocks stop for me I see the ocean
frozen
eye of black pupil I see
that I envy you

Think I have your bone fragment in my brain
I do not
have that coal soot trail of enlightenment
oh brother
I dream of babies that hold on
with little hands
think I’m their mother



Copyright Kristina (Coker) Morgan, 2000

Lady Luck

Lady Luck

Black coffee tastes burnt, and cigarettes
burn too fast. What would
thinness solve? But to be worn down, pressed
dark to coal. The circles under my eyes.
A mummy, cracked and dry.
Do I want to look as scary as I feel?
A small girl with black curls smiles,
records my movements,
my look, the blue-green hair.
I want to be a mermaid, my own
pathetic fantasy. Swimming
all the time. Or Lady Luck,
escaped the wheel
she knows more horror
than rapture.

Copyright Kristina (Coker) Morgan, 2001

This is the Life

This is the Life


Street Punk: Hard Core and Gutter
Leather and metal, mohawk, Mad Dog
Colored vomit, dried egg
On squat walls and no water
Sewage. Skin smooth as thick glass
Yellow like old paper. Street Punk


Tell the drunk bums to shut the fuck up
Tell the dirty men to fuck
Themselves, smack an old junkie
Nodding off in a door frame
I drift off, dream about lizards
I thrust forward my dry tongue


The sky, far shining desert
Come closer. Bus stop on Market, cold
Concrete, food stamps and beer
Panhandle University
Wake at dawn and watching
Sun rising, pyramid shadows my bones.




Copyright Kristina Coker Morgan, 1996

Tap Dancing, Movies, and Sky

Tap Dancing, Movies, and Sky

Her blue thigh shifts to the side
under her thin dress. She steps, stops,
looks down at nothing as she dances
a slow, deliberate line across the camera.
This movie steps with her. She is
in every frame. The light Buffalo sky


is the same far away color
sliding across her body.
Blue bleeding through every angle,
so close and fleshy
but stepping deliberately
without you.




Copyright Kristina Coker Morgan, 2000

Two Weeks in L.A.

Two Weeks in L.A.


You continue to wear black.
Her curtains are lacy, off-white.
We go out her screen door
In bare-feet, we smoke.


Her curtains are lacy, off-white.
Each morning, she chants
In bare-feet, we smoke.
Every yard has a palm tree.


Each morning she chants.
Her cats circle, curl around her.
Every yard has a palm tree
Open as a young hand.


Her cats circle, curl around her.
We have juice and croissants
Soft as a young hand.
She works nights at a bar.


We have juice and croissants.
She is bleaching her hair.
She works nights at a bar
On Ventura, in a strip mall.


She is bleaching her hair
Before the heat grabs us.
On Ventura, in a strip mall
We buy beer, cigarettes.


Before the heat grabs us
You continue to wear black.
We buy beer, cigarettes.
We go out her screen door.




Copyright Kristina Coker Morgan, 1996