FEATURED WRITER

Laura Salvatore

Summer in the city

All June I watched the starlings

bloody the roof with berries plucked

from the nearby cherry tree. Lifting

their beaks, smelling the metallic air,

swallowing the gushing orbs whole.

I think of sending you photos

of the red stained roof, the pits

scattered to one side, my bare

body in the reflection of the window.

A year ago you were hardly wrapped

around the maw of my interiority,

not the vacant dirt road,

not your hand on my leg.

With you, I bought red jasper

streetside. The man warned

me when he handed

it over, repeated it twice.

I couldn’t hear him over my

echolocating of you.

My shirt and hair stick to me

in the spots where previously

you strayed, the cavernous

granite hold of my lower back.

Do you ever think of giving

your body what it wants?

I do constantly, but can’t

bring myself to do it.

Alone, I smell fresh air

and light something on fire,

let my hair grow greasy.

Find trails of pepper seeds

everywhere I go; in my bed,

under the hallway rug

my messiness alive behind me.

*

In yesterday’s car, we sing praise

of the yucca trees we pass.

How sharp they spear into

the air. Forest of swords, I dream

of placing myself in your center.

Unreachable, quiet.

Beginning of the second act

I want to die with

a ballerina’s clavicle

pressed against

my throat

an intimate knowledge

of my body

and all its muscled parts

unraveling while

rapturous harps

string along

everywhere we go is teapot kettle love

velvet plush

a give and take

of limbs

Ghost Town

If you need me,

i’m pretending

I live at the precipice

of a dusty mountain.

At the start

of the day,

you bring me a

loaf of rye bread

and new keys,

shimmy out

the one that

broke clean off

in the lock

when I forced

its hand

the day before.

There is nothing

better than sheets

pinned cleanly

to the line, grappling

with the breeze.

Nothing better than

a half crumbled wall

holding ground.

Nothing better than

a zinnia arcing

highwayside.

My heart is that exact ravine,

arriving suddenly and clawing

into existence a place to lay.

I am

excessively

careful

with what

I love.

I am asking,

please,

squeeze

my thigh with

the hand not on

doorknob.

I emanate

when you are

in reach

even when the

reaching is

entirely my own.

Laura Salvatore is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at The City College of New York. She studied Art History and English at Southern Connecticut State University. Laura currently works at Sotheby’s Institute of Art as part of the Global Online division. Her poetry has been published in Pith journal, Angel City Review, and Apricity Magazine, amongst others.