THREE POEMS

JEREMY RADIN

BENEATH A STRAWBERRY TREE

We build our cottage here / beneath a strawberry tree / you give me a boat / with strawberries in it / beneath a strawberry tree / we compare the sizes of our hands / mine are bigger / but yours can hold more at once / & leave red angels on everything / beneath a strawberry tree / I pull hedgehogs from your armpits / you hate my magic / I make a machine / fall out of a lemon / coax the lord from your ear / the lord is an ear / larger than our listening / beneath a strawberry tree / I form a cult around your ankles / all day long we drink cool water / eat nectarines / & sigh

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THE BANANA ROOM

Meet me here / in whatever some-odd years / perhaps longer / perhaps tomorrow / I’ll be here / slipping on the peels / laughing / slipping on the peels / laughing / practicing for your arrival / a word about what you are afraid of / maybe / meet me here / I am so lonely / I learned a second language / this place bubbles up / from my belly button / every month / a new room / in each I slip fall & laugh / at what I imagine / you will find amazingly funny / each room yellow / sometimes with blood / & bundles of bananas / swaying from the ceiling / a thousand sugary chandeliers / bathing the dark / in bruises

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BLUEBERRIES

Running the trails near your house / you meet a woman who looks just like you / six feet three inches / two hundred fifty pounds / & a wolf / in a ballgown / petals of ferocious purple / wild green shoots / swaying to no song / you are very lonely / she says / I didn’t want to say anything / you say / well / there you go / she says / & approaches / looping her arms around you / tucking her muzzle into your beard / you smell like the internet / she says / I know / you say / & she leads you to a room / bundles of lupine hang from the ceiling / grow from the ground / belted around the waists of birch / the floor / draped in fog / you are concerned about your hands / she says / how does she know / how long have you been dancing / tonight / she says / a cake is grieving / writing bad poems in a greasy notebook / sketching what it remembers of your face / each time you breathe / a birch tree grows / the room gets bigger / your hands / the size of a reason / she says / you dance like a school of accidents / pigeons thronging out of your body / vials of something dark around their necks / what is your sexual preference / she asks / imaginary / you answer / the room fills with silence / she moves toward you / out of her body / all of the blueberries / glowing

JEREMY RADIN is a poet and actor living in Los Angeles. His poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Winter Tangerine, Union Station, Nailed, Bodega, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, and others, and his first book, Slow Dance with Sasquatch, is available from Write Bloody Publishing. You may have seen him on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia or yelling about wolves in like a Jamba Juice or something. Follow him @germyradin