Gin Hip

Poem by Mariah Lynne Dear

This street
makes her cry.

“On my seventh birthday
I was holding an ice cream cone,
and I dropped it.”

there is a tree shadow in her look
that she is drawing
at super-speed.

She has a crisp collar memory.

An ear twist to a blue
man’s voice,
our tickle blink
at the white man’s honey
spinning through
this nomad air.

We grow corner spit lips
when we are testy

I am horse whinny spook
at their wide cat
wildberry grins

Her hips are llama farm ferocious
at their glass smash molars,
at their dentist hungry hands
insisting on a double
with a lime on the pretty
little rim.

Meltdown in a casino,
wet counter bar scene,
bowler hat over the tilt
of this old man’s winning jeans.

Oh, to dine
a Woman in this attention!

Dine her this attention.
Seven months and counting,
this attention hasn’t once asked
either of us for a story,
or a smile,
or a name.