Heather Hughes
3 Poems
Specter: Survivor
Strapped down in a room. Cream and that ugly green that reflects
back ugly: you bruised, terrible, calm. Too much, the mute bulb-
flicker. Mountains crowd against the window. I edge in.
The knob flinches in my hand. I see your purple swaying. You
rasp Not me. How tall you look laid out between the sheets.
The door’s yet cracked. Mountains jostle in the hall. I stay,
wishing someone else would show. Maybe you curled into
another green-white waste. Maybe the mountains did this to you, too.
Specter: Supplication
I scan warped riptides.
I believe in endings.
Lighthouses, too.
When I die, plant me in dune grass.
Return.
Read one page aloud each night.
Altitude Sick
I’m woozy and spectral.
A metal band hemorrhages
power chords in the Plaza
outside the cathedral, maybe
an homage to the Black Christ
at the altar, his skin a crackle
of candle-soot, who is resting
before he parades forth
in his wild gold-fringed skirt,
and who doesn’t worry
that the sacred is shakily built
by dismantling glory.
I’m leaving Cusco tomorrow
with three ugly fuschia llama
souvenirs for you.