Two Poems by Heather Kays

Rustmouth
Inspired by Jan Beatty

They said I grew wrong—
roots curling back into the dirt
like veins that refused to climb.
I say I grew sharp:
tongue rusted to a razor’s edge,
lungs lit with gasoline.

Your family dinners smell of linen
and garlic bread. Mine reeked of
ashtrays, vodka breath, the cracked leather
of a Buick backseat.

I learned love from the slam of a screen door,
from the bruised hush after fists
found a wall instead of me.

I don’t care about your inheritance—
my legacy is blood under the nails,
a cigarette still burning in the sink,
a voice that curdles milk in the glass.

Think of me when the lights cut out—
I’m the hum in the wires,
the shiver in the lock,
the taste of copper when
you bite down too hard.

You, with your polished prayers.
Me, with my rustmouth.
I was forged in scrapyards,
and I’ll drag you there with me,
if you ever try to call it love.

*

Ordinary Hours
For Beau

It isn’t roses or fireworks.
It’s the way your hand
finds mine on the console,
two lifelines pressed together
while traffic lights hum red.

It’s shaky legs in a cold waiting room,
where your smile softens
the antiseptic walls,
turns the ticking clock into something
almost kind.

It’s you across a chipped diner table,
plastic cutlery scattered like stars between us,
your thumb brushing the rim of your glass
as if it were a secret only I could hear.

It’s the sidewalks we claim,
step by step,
your shadow always folding into mine
like it knows where it belongs.

Love, for me, is this—
not grand gestures, not borrowed, not staged—
but the small and stubborn ways
the world feels less brutal
when you are beside me.

*

Heather Kays is a St. Louis-based poet and author who has been passionate about writing since age seven. Her memoir, Pieces of Us, dissects her mother’s struggles with alcoholism and addiction. Her YA novel, Lila’s Letters, explores healing through unsent letters. She is currently seeking a literary agent and publisher for Pieces of Us, along with six chapbooks and two full-length poetry collections.

She runs The Alchemists, an online writing group and creative community, and is drawn to stories that explore survival, identity, and the complexity of being human.

Her work has recently appeared in ONE ART, Cosmic Daffodil Journal, Chiron Review, The Literary Underground, The Rye Whiskey Review, SHINE Poetry Series, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.