Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
Sanatorium Juqueri
Maria, give us camphor.
A saint should give real things
since she is not like us. A saint
should feed like manioc. Donna
Maria, let us line up
at your skin. A saint should not be
among us the only one dressed.
How should your blue remind me?
There’s only a grate of sky
at the showers where my small
sulfurous cake could be
precious heel of you, delicate
floating, I must touch and
touch, palms of lather, escape
me and let it be real palms
and guava, cicadas in my dream
where if I step into your sight,
the loan of my body will be paid.
Kelleen Zubick’s poetry has appeared in Many Mountains Moving, The Seattle Review, Puerto Del Sol, and The Antioch Review, among other journals, and is forthcoming in Dogwood. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Arizona State University and lives and works in Denver, Colorado. (updated 11/2009)