Six Poems by Sara Lupita Olivares

TOWARDS

obligatory orchids
wave

I crawl under
the leaves

to understand
the garbage

what is anyone’s
karma

besides a
misunderstanding
    

    
CERTAIN NOISE

late affairs reach woods

pines and our mountain reason

fisherman dividing waters

age to deep boat ends

detachment is a quiet

crowd as much

as a remote

sweeping
    

    
ABOUT OBLIVION

want lamps quiet

minds of white sails

birds tilted live fluid

I remember remembered

forgot

how love woke

looking

how bones deepen

animals

how we speculate

tragedy

speaking bright foam

veering morning

silent
    

    
SHIPYARDS

there aren’t any more

the water wakes its floor

I hurry myself as if I could

the feeling of having

laughed while asleep

sometimes a wharf

but it doesn’t belong

shells and bones

in rosemary

waves move wind

you plant again

I hurry myself

as if I could
    

    
FORM

why did the wood-dove because

of its particular affirmation tilted

wanting to see the gutters wanting

to know whether it was the orange

garage peeling or the mosquito

netted in light its tedious arch

being midday light holding

your hair your tired

center the ordinary

grass swayed

to bits
    

    
SMALL GHOST

the part that jars like a seed
from its shell
floats

as certain
as its victorian nightgown

everything similar and mahogany
each noise settling

someone singing
    

    
Sara Lupita Olivares received her MFA in poetry at Texas State University. Her poems have appeared in Fourteen Hills, Wicked Alice, Columbia Poetry Review, and elsewhere. This winter dancing girl press will be publishing her chapbook titled Field Things. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY where she teaches in Harlem.