‘JAR OF PICKLED HEART’, ‘LIZ, NOT LONG AFTER’ & ‘BIRDSONG FOR INSOMNIACS’

Michael Raqim Mira is a photographer and writer based in Texas. He began practicing film photography in 2004 and later moved on to digital format. He is currently working on a photo book called "Dreaming in Monochrome."

JAR OF PICKLED HEART

Wind emerges from the usual location
heaping scruds of whitecaps
toward shore
toward my trespass.

I am waiting for the sun
to set, expecting shadows
to envelope me.

We stayed here once
in a borrowed saltbox
while you kneaded clay
into figurines & I gathered
driftwood for future fires.
Fog at night instead of stars.
The windowbox garden
was raided by crows, only
a tortuous carrot survived
& tasted of paper ash.

I clutch a paper gas station
cup which held sour coffee
& now contains my heart.
It’s been salted, battered, &
sanded & I will wade out
into the breakers &
deliberately let it free.
Do not attempt salvage.
This slippery thing is
best left to fishes and gulls,
sharp teeth and you,
your elegant dismissal.

LIZ, NOT LONG AFTER

Left the bike against a tree.
The lake looks like a bruise amid
trails, shoreside brush, the
molar roots of drowned trees,
that road home.
We kissed right there.
Like a bruise, I expect the lake
to look better eventually,
to go from angry blue-black
to a sickly green & then
yellow & gone.
What color is the underlying
flesh of this place?
Red, you’d think, given its
tribal history, not the weak
tan of dissolution.
Color me sad.
Sit under a lamp alone
or go south for the sun.
This won’t hurt at all
eventually.

BIRDSONG FOR INSOMNIACS

The birds this morning are
LOUD
for tiny paper-boned
scraps of feather.
I think, sugar
or possibly cocaine.
I’d like to encourage
their mothers to say,
with a shake of head,
inside voices, please.

But the mothers who
squatted & dropped the eggs,
waited & squinched
atop the nest until the shells
opened with a pip & shudder,
these mothers know well
the babies were wide mouthed
screamers at day one.

A crow glides overhead
looking for coffee &
what I thought was loud,
was only a warmup.
Chaos trilled.
Hey, birdies
take a break.
You can have the trees,
that nest in the eave,
another in the gutter.
I promise to keep
the cat inside, tail angry,
if only you will
let me sleep.

Travis Stephens is a tugboat captain who lives and works with his family in California. His book of poetry, “skeeter bit & still drunk” was published by Finishing Line Press.