‘If We Are Savage & Lucky’ by stephanie roberts
for Lawson Fusao Inada
Where else could you be? Rulers and hearts broken.
What reverie descends, wet Saturday afternoon,
late October, parked on a floral-patterned
velvet chesterfield,
in front of a TV movie of World War II heroic.
When it began you groaned;
not World War II again, but there you were
watching American square jaws save the free world.
You search for your phantom tollbooth
between sobs of rain, internal commotion
knocks, like unbalanced laundry,
impatient for an engineer to correct
pandemonium – askew horizon, no corner
a true right angle. The kisses the sand plum blows,
against the far window, remind you of shelter
once taken, under metal lean-to, by a river with him
heavy in your heart as wet sand. Now
would be the perfect moment
to plate his head in your lap. Let idle hands love
what they do while eyes feast war and ears harmonize
fallen music with a memory of steel drum.
If he were a mountain chain singular on top of you,
and not fragments like corporal Smithy
(recently blown to Hollywood hambourgeois),
you could search veiled eyes, knead smooth
knotted anxiety, sample saltsweet tongue,
pour gin and beer kiss; explain to him definitively
broken things are often replaced, and what has fallen
crooked with abuse may be shored-the-fuck-up
– winched back into place. This rain you say out loud
in a mania of gestures against an aria of cannons,
it’s still my favourite. Still yours.
From issue #8: spring/summer 2019
About the Author
stephanie roberts is a previous contributor. Born in Central America, she resides in Québec, Canada. Her work is featured or forthcoming in Crannóg , Verse Daily, L’Éphémère Review, and The Poetry Annals. A 2018 Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her work has recently been translated into Farsi.
