Heather Hughes

3 Poems

Specter: Survivor

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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.

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The knob flinches in my hand. I see your purple swaying. You

rasp Not me. How tall you look laid out between the sheets.

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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.

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Specter: Supplication

I scan warped riptides.

I believe in endings.

Lighthouses, too.

When I die, plant me in dune grass.

Return.

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Read one page aloud each night.

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Altitude Sick

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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.