{"id":8633,"date":"2024-10-31T11:00:39","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T11:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/?post_type=article&p=8633"},"modified":"2024-10-30T18:18:08","modified_gmt":"2024-10-30T18:18:08","slug":"two-poems-15","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/two-poems-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carolene Kurien<\/span><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Confession<\/h3>\n

I am a bad horse.<\/p>\n

I neigh and hoof my way into the houses<\/p>\n

of neighborhood husbands<\/p>\n

and commission myself for rides<\/p>\n

to know straddle and buck.<\/p>\n

Some say my mane is the color<\/p>\n

of the death beyond death. Some say<\/p>\n

it\u2019s best to avoid direct eye contact.<\/p>\n

I ask the hydrangea why it is so hard to forgive<\/p>\n

people who have changed. Did you know<\/p>\n

the more acidic their soil, the bluer<\/p>\n

they get? I am not trying to make a metaphor,<\/p>\n

but I am saying that most of my daydreams<\/p>\n

involve being loved by large groups<\/p>\n

of people. I walk into a surprise party<\/p>\n

with a banner that reads Happy Birthday,<\/p>\n

You Are A Good Person! Someone has baked<\/p>\n

my favorite carrot cake. Someone has bought<\/p>\n

more mini razors for my mustache. The people I fuck<\/p>\n

in my fantasies have no faces. I can barely make out<\/p>\n

their bodies. The ghost of myself whimpers<\/p>\n

under the ghost of theirselves,<\/p>\n

and none of us can smile. The book I am reading<\/p>\n

says it\u2019s not my fault. How I am.<\/p>\n

That I was just a kid, apparently. But now I am old;<\/p>\n

my teeth will fall out soon. And my empty<\/p>\n

mouth will no longer have someone else to blame.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Saudade<\/h3>\n

I am eating a jam sandwich the taste of rain.<\/p>\n

I am finding it difficult to harness myself<\/p>\n

into the concept of forgiveness. Rosmarie Waldrop<\/p>\n

wrote Your skin was delicate, like a retracted confession.<\/em><\/p>\n

The dent in your back I placed wishing coins upon<\/p>\n

thin and deepening. Your empty, welling face.<\/p>\n

Under a microscope, various teardrops have various<\/p>\n

physiognomies. Onion tears reach outward like rhizomes,<\/p>\n

ever-wet and blooming. Tears of ending and beginning<\/p>\n

are Rorschach tests filled with your features: a boat-shaped<\/p>\n

birthmark, a whisper of nose. Under the streetlight I pick<\/p>\n

a painting and live it. I walk the cliff at Pourville.<\/p>\n

I disassemble into yellow kiss. Above my head floats<\/p>\n

an assembly of arms. I am uneasy with what I\u2019ll become.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carolene Kurien   A Confession I am a bad horse. I neigh and hoof my way into the houses of neighborhood husbands and commission myself for rides to know straddle and buck. Some say my mane is the color of the death beyond death. Some say it\u2019s best to avoid direct eye contact. I ask […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":8634,"template":"","categories":[9,49,119],"tags":[6,1983],"class_list":["post-8633","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-literary-features","category-poetry","tag-aquifer-the-florida-review-online","tag-carolene-kurien"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTwo Poems - The Florida Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/two-poems-15\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two Poems - The Florida Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Carolene Kurien   A Confession I am a bad horse. 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