Upstate
Nature’s a beautiful bitch.
Nightshade along the Hudson & in
an old stone house the floorboards
warp with nostalgia.
I have friends with hearts that stutter,
one going slowly blind.
Nature says Love me
or don’t, I don’t care.
Woods full of deer ticks & felled
trees from last year’s ice storm.
Poppies emblazoning a field.
Bean-sized shadow on an x-ray.
Deep red, & flowering—
Slut. Slit. Opening
& blackening the day.
*
Aria Di Sorbetto
Welcome to the abattoir.
The opera is ending soon.
Get a taste of this raspberry tart
before the bad odor starts.
We’ll all get our ears pierced, then burst into tears.
I just want to take off this fucking bra
and stare drunkenly at the shining Mediterranean.
Don wants to come back as a whale, but careful
what you wish for: you might find yourself entangled
in old fishing gear, strangled by a crab trap,
dragging your enormous, exhausted heart for years
until you succumb. Sort of like the human you already are.
Missing the gelato in that little Italian village.
Ah, ah, opera! It sounds like a whale that swallowed a musical
and I loathe musicals. But that time Josh suddenly
broke into song in the Eighth Avenue subway
beside the bronze Otterness sculptures—the workers
and politicians, the alligator swallowing a businessman
whose head is a moneybag—a thin shiv of joy
slipped under my ribs and undid me, and Aya took my hand
as the train shrieked in and yes, if you ask me yes, oh yes,
I will.
*
Kim Addonizio is the author of over a dozen books of prose and poetry. Her latest poetry collection is Exit Opera (W.W. Norton, September 2024). Her memoir-in-essays, Bukowski in a Sundress, was published by Penguin. Addonizio’s work has been translated into several languages and honored with fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, and her collection Tell Me was a finalist for the National Book Award. She lives in Oakland, CA and teaches poetry workshops on Zoom. kimaddonizio.com