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.
