The Champagne of Teas
I steep myself in myself like darjeeling.
This is how I blush,
I am so myself.
This is how I move.
A ghost becomes a girl
becomes a stranger
becomes someone
at the party
in the other room.
I feel like maybe
I can belong here
in my hair’s daydreams
and the smell of whiskey
and my newly forming bruise.
I take a break so
the mirror can
give me back my face.
My face says
remember what we talked about
simple wishes
saying hi how are you
and later
tea that tastes like dew
and mountain air.
Still Life
Have you ever been
A lost and found box
With irregular and
Porous borders?
I saw Cezanne’s
Still Life With Apples
And a Pot of Primroses
And now I am a different shape
Entirely. Talking about
A painting
In a poem
Is like being born
In the nineties
And then
Going to Montreal
And calling someone
From a phone booth.
I look different
In this picture
I tell them.
The world
Looks different.
I am looking
At apples and primroses
And I have never been
So ecstatic.
Unraveling
Monday wakes up and pushes me
out of bed and down the stairs and
out the door on a ticking bike to last year
that makes my soul motion sick to think of,
of the golden crunch steps on leaves and
the smoke rising and disappearing like the
thoughts behind your eyes as they blink
a million snapshots of me,
and I blink a million of you,
before it all unravels like a scarf
and leaves September like a beauty mark
on the face of last year.
Kelly Corinda lives in New York and writes poetry. Recent work can be found in The Sugar House Review, Dum Dum Magazine, and smoking glue gun.