Five Poems
by Ambrielle Butler
SNOWBALL FIGHT IN THE CEMETERY
To me, this is an icy shaft of cold breeze, cutting through the tears that spill down
my cheeks as they lower my papa’s casket into the compacted earth. To my kids,
this is the clouds blowing kisses as they travel by, a reminder to look up and
wonder at what’s above them. My nana lays a flower on the casket, a hard
thing to do. Her four-year-old granddaughter surmises hard things are worthy
of a high five and a congratulatory, “you did it!” The mourners crack a smile.
My papa would have loved that. Gathered around the grave, the toddlers bounce
around the cemetery. My daughter picks up a snowball and lobs it at her
grandma. My son joins in, the foreign snow a novelty worthy of play, no matter
the location. And why shouldn’t the cemetery be the perfect spot for a snowball fight?
Their laughter splits the chill of the winter air, a warm cocoon for my grief.
At home, my children pick weeds from the lawn, white spindly flowers, and
stick them in an old Cheerwine bottle on the kitchen counter. They hand them
to me, grinning, wondering how I could have ever seen anything but a bouquet.
CURTAIN CALL
Grab your scripts and turn to page 44, the scene in which the saloon girls will
throw their frocks up above their heads and contort into feather boas, barrel
roll across his back and wonder why he looks at you this way, morsel to be
devoured, now look there, here, there again, snap your neck and give it as a
prize for his patience, are you not aware how much effort it takes not to take?
and when the applause roars back from the audience, he will take it as his
own, a serenade for every good man who stumbled onto opportunity rather than
created it, after all, it’s written in the script, the scene here where she drizzles
herself over a chair, kicks her fishing-netted legs over the tall back, coaxes him
with but a bat of her eyelashes, then, flicks her skirts up to show off her knickers,
parade of red and black tulle, yet, he’ll wonder why she cries when he slithers an
arm down the front of her dress, when in the script, page 48, worth every penny,
a trophy of hips and breasts, his hands weighed about her waist, and if she is
not the prize for his best behavior, then surely, he wonders, what else could it be?
LITERARY DREAMS
My Pinterest board screams at me in pink poppy letters, dreams only come true
if you have them; perhaps this is why I’ve taken to over-caffeinating at night,
stretching my eyelids taut like I wish to recreate the torture device in Burgess’s
“Clockwork Orange”, and, funnily enough, I had a dream where we were sharing
clementines on a picnic blanket, exchanging them softly like vows, sucking
the juice between chapped lips, the pruny husks littering the ground, and you
stroked my knuckles with mechanic fingers, yes, metal hooks for nails, and I lay
my head against your breastbone and heard no heart, but ticking timepiece, and
when Alice dreamt, her rabbit was running late for a date, but what do you imagine
all that running was for? My dream date is somewhere sunny, somewhere warm and
wooded, my body bundled in layers of fur, where the explorer is limited to marked trails,
where no hand coyly snakes toward the rabbit-hole, where no eager eye roams down
a Playboy Bunny frame, where no means no and dreams stay dreams, and Wonderland
lies miles away—safe in my bed, locked in my head, the exploiter stilled, stationary.
HOLLYWOOD ROMANCE
I am now too old for DiCaprio to want. It doesn’t mean much anyways—the cynics
would’ve pointed out my flawed complexion or the speckling of silver stars woven
through my curls or the doughy belly soft from life-giving. It is amazing what this
body has become in my short years; a treasure map of the many places I’ve been,
the memories collected, the heartaches overcome, the hurdles jumped. I’ve lived
and died in this flesh. This heart is trampled with heartache; bandaged
by love. It is a truth acknowledged that Hollywood ages slower, all life grinding to
a standstill in the California fast lane. I hid my heart in promises of California.
Your sun-ripened cheeks. Your ocean hair. Your sandy eyes. It’s beautiful
to feel whole with someone. To know that you are their becoming. To know that
love doesn’t fade with age but deepens fathoms. To know that at the root of all
I say lies a truth eternal—being with you is a slow coming home.
LOBSTER ROLL
He informs me that at some restaurants they do not clarify their butter, rather
they’ll serve you margarine if they’re cheap, or plain ole melted butter if they’re
lazy, he claims that a restaurant of quality takes the time to strain it, skim the foam
from off the top and pour liquid gold into a cheesecloth to rid it of milky residue, and
only then is it fit for dipping red lux lobster, the shelled carcasses still sitting on the
cutting board next to the boiling pot, the beady eyes still weeping diamonds onto
the tiled kitchen floor, where, only the finest chefs, will harvest them, carefully swept
into the dust bin, passed to the gemologist who sifts through to find the microscopic
flaws unseen to naked eyes, and takes the rocks of highest clarity to weld into the handles
of the finest restaurant’s cutlery. I grab the roll in my hands, dip deep into the cup
of briney sunshine, the liquid glistening on the plump meat, the sunset glittering
through the waves to shimmer on the ocean floor, and the lobsters, poor stupid lobsters, entranced by the spectacle, the most beautiful sight they have ever seen, the juicy bite
on my lips bliss to my untrained palette, luxury invented by those discontented to simply be.
BIO: Ambrielle Butler is a writer and poet from Texas. Her poetry can be found or is forthcoming in publications like Okay Donkey, Belmont Story Review, Red Ogre Review, Superstition Review, Valley Voices, Plainsongs and others. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter @ajbutlerwriting. Thank you for your consideration! Ambrielle Butler (she/her) Instagram: @ajbutlerwriting Twitter: @ajbutlerwriting Ambriellebutler.wordpress.com