Rachel Levitsky
Old Wave
Fold me after me
Who never went there
Beautiful as Lil Wayne
And brave foot apart
When handholding allowed
Things ample and given
Read future deep lover
A long time no change
Mother father bind her
Face in kitchen burning
Long beach road broken
Before hill, llama, pony
The cat’s broken tail
Why tell me this?
Our story to come
Beach road star car
That lavish kindness singular
Free valet parking snacks
Each consensual trauma more
Highway postage for firehose
Face light wide close
Erases archive, after feeling
Pots succulent cactus euphorbia
Coffee orange water wine
Marine layer stripes fiber
Keep plan no’s matter
Same stocks, two coast
Body function: not squeamish
Likes comfort like negative
What did you say?
Vessels releasing song simultaneous
Instructed negative don’t come
Not yet. Sex advice
From Chasidic father
Pulsation dissects
Palpitation Herophilus
Sphygmos, palmos, tromos, spasmos
Quietly reframing alone, alone
Names houses, which burns
Candle held color removed
Eastern interruption sea glass
Responds with, got this.
Engages richness. Says no.
Weeps bounty upon its
Brand perdition, Missoni, Herman
Miller someone’s reach, Saab
Pissed saying no fucking
Way will you say
Anything about it, steel
Yourself, what we have
Is a private loop
Rich to write about
Too rich to write
Poetry, mother writes novels
Sunday paints, holiday cards
A poor correspondent worried
About the handwriting it
Doesn’t hold up past
Address unknown, no response
Writes the publisher, government
Cortázar private poet’s stone
Cold resistance, a person
Never just to avoid
That blow. Steel it.
Brother leaves building
Early San Diego’s sea birds’
Garbage, erase the messages
Garbage, kelps the scrub
Brush, scattering the message
Keep all the messages!
A many-lined book
One sweet aunt’s pain
Gaunt look dear daughter
Wrapped dark near river
Random dots, freeways, Mexico
No, London … higher word
Despite good being good
To spite calling memory
Memory missing its oubli
Recapturing blue oublay sky.
Steals bright blue music
Study, walk the dog.
Make lots of people
Open to you, happy.
Poet Rachel Levistsky is a founder of Belladonna, a feminist collective dedicated to experimental women’s writing. She is the author of several collections, novels, and plays. The Story of My Accident is Ours, a novel about activism, collectivity, and agency, is available from Futurepoem. Neighbor was published by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2009 and reissued in 2020. Levitsky is based in New York City.
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