Four Poems by Patton Quinn

eve’s eve.

they said to have phonemic awareness,
but i forgot to write it down.

i was busy thinking about when my new phone
would arrive by mail.

i was busy missing buses and biting myself and
overdosing on strattera mantras

i was busy undreaming my way into getting lost in
factory snow cities, last stops, empty christmas carnivals.

i want to go to midnight mass, listen to silent night,
have the quiet incense wake me up,
telling me,
“unpack your small light in the long and wintering solstice night”

mother

the doll mother with the sewn in eyes.
i study the ova and the rusting away of the pipes,
plastic foam, garbage, and polymers.

mended together with the
the discarded bones of the last supper
her tousled hair wrapped in the cedar crown of christ,

hansel and gretel, the incestuous twins,
i tricked that fat whore into self-immolation
her cellulite flesh burned alongside breadcrumbs,
that dwarf pedophile rumpelstiltskin spins gold into nothingness to
steal my first born child,
rapunzel chokes on her hair

the scared, broken-boned, no-eyed, no good
pile of wet and moldy wood whispers his confession into towels

the buzz we hear
the moth, the cicada,
junebugs bumbling into walls . . .
flies suffocate around candles,
wings dragged into phosphorus and butane.

landing pad

snow shimmer gives
and withholds
pure flicker untouched silver glitter
cream holds nothing
and cold is a negative number

humus has hot pink
has indigo matte,
has galaxy dark sky
it holds all

our smells mix-up
in aerated tunnels
with roly poly juice

taste the rainbow station
the angelic arc to
my old familiar process
bursts and spurts
the sin of vomiting my fearpain-
be the tarmac landing pad for
my cult massacre.

the rhizome collective

is reality a rhizome
               collective?
nobody knows.
               nobody knows
                              what’s behind
               the screens
we crawl into
the grid mold
               everyday,
                              blindness.

               forge my signature -
check the account balance -
    a subtotal of
 no tears left to give.

i be wandring, wondring,
           ridin  my bike
 havin panic attacks
at the metaphor pharmacy.

 

Patton Quinn received both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from St. Edward’s University. Her work has been featured in: McSweeney’s, Rebel Society, Overland Literary Magazine, Matchbook Series, and more.

Instagram: @amor_en_idleness