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2 poems by Lauren Suchenski



Your head Your head like a promise between my skin wrapped breathy and scraggle-hair-scratchy Your heart like a motion - rippled, tidal and elegant Your voice like a resonance - coupled, ancient and no-longer foreign And this smell I can never stop smelling The hunger of your bones for my flesh The clavicle of my home where your chest beats The beat of the drum hollowing this place on your breastbone - firm, open, holding -   All holding, all held Your head held - between my hands or in them Your head held - above my heart or within



 

Great feats accomplished mid-air on a flight home to Philadelphia



You bubble-eye up at me, faucets of hands pouring out at me marshmallow skin and brandied hair swaying without reason in no direction at all



something shouts from inside your tin-pipe of a crackle-voice -- the “Mom!” escaping into the plane-recycled-air ;; popping hot like a cascade of visible letters



I try to pull my sing-song voice out of the front-most of my quiet-box mouth machine // you rub your eyes with grandeur, I press a tiny finger to my lips, make the everlasting “sh” sound



But the air is filled with the tingle of your voice now; the light through the tiny plane windows reverberates with the magnet tenor of your high-cathedral-ceilinged voice // To me it sounds like candy ;; but still I laugh and “sh” a gentle stream of fingers pressed against lips and lilypad eyes glaring a soft “no”



You care only for the joy of sound ;; the exuberant declaration: “Mom! I did it” (you’ve done it, the perfect accomplishment of play; the greatest accomplishment on the plane) You bubble-eye your little boy blues at me I stroke your plum jam cheek; I secretly thrill myself in the sweet carol of your voice I cannot stand to quiet your celebratory hum, but here yet again I press my lips to the tinctures of your ears for a gentle reminder (I’ve done it; the perfect accomplishment) and still, after you have quieted and the anxiety of the passengers on the plane has released the jinglelove of your little voice tingles inside of my brain like the most elegant bird still in flight; a great gift still singing




 


Lauren Suchenski has a difficult relationship with punctuation and currently lives in Yardley, PA. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize as well as twice for The Best of the Net and her chapbook “Full of Ears and Eyes Am I” is available from Finishing Line Press. You can find more of her writing on Instagram @lauren_suchenski or on Twitter @laurensuchenski. 

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