Karla Lamb
POST-BREAKUP AUBADE WITH STATE BIRD
Pittsburgh’s pollution is on the rise. My hair falls out in circular patches. It wasn’t our cast iron pan, slowly poisoning me. I’m in a Polish Hill anarchist coffee shop. Researching the female heart attack. Symptoms include: resentment, compartmentalizing emotions, shortness of breath. You want to drop off my mail. As if the post office didn’t know, as if I hadn’t changed my address months ago. The bird population in Pittsburgh is in decline. The ruffed grouse are mostly quiet, but they do make sounds. Female calls include a nasal squeal, or hiss-like alarm. I dissociate. Can’t sit still. The people of Pittsburgh protest an unarmed Black boy murdered by police—& we agree, to meet in this public place. As if—public spaces were mutual, or safe. I hyperventilate. I overanalyze. Bypassing pleasantries, you plop down The Northside Chronicle, penny savers, $5 pizza ads between us. Ask—had I gone to the OBGYN, positing my body broken. Meaning, how hadn’t 4 years of pulling out knocked me up? Pittsburgh boils its drinking water. Epidemic of lead poisoning—in preemies. Next door, punks have vegan brunch—smoke patio cigarettes. My mind: a discarded floral twin mattress on the highway. Our twin mattress, in the Allegheny. Pushed off the 279 parkway. & you know how I feel, about mattresses in rivers. In nature, male grouse are extremely territorial. Tomorrow morning, 11 people massacred in the synagogue. Perspiring in October heat, I walk alone to my car. Shoulder blades winged—keys, shiny talons puncturing my fist
URBAN OUTFITTERS
Home / Bedding / Covers / Reversible Linen Blend Duvet $99 $159.00
In late summer’s feathered afternoon,
I picture myself minced by the blades
of our bedroom fan.
I gaze deadpan—at its blunt edges.
In the vision, my neck is craned.
In the vision, my head rolls away.
Blood splats across—
our boho print duvet.
You love—when my head
rolls away. You love,
when my severed head
sucks in dust from under there.
My dead eyes roll—to the back
of my severed head. You love—
our boho print duvet.
You’re dumping me with ten-dollar words.
You’re wondering—what I see
from under there.
In late summer’s feathered afternoon,
I picture myself minced by the blades
of our bedroom fan.
I gaze deadpan—at its blunt edges.
In the vision, my neck is craned.
In the vision, my head rolls away.
Blood splats across—
our boho print duvet.
You love—when my head
rolls away. You love,
when my severed head
sucks in dust from under there.
My dead eyes roll—to the back
of my severed head. You love—
our boho print duvet.
You’re dumping me with ten-dollar words.
You’re wondering—what I see
from under there.
Karla Lamb is a multidisciplinary Chicana poet, with work in A Women’s Thing Magazine, The Shallow Ends, Yes; Poetry, Word Riot, Coal Hill Review, Fine Print Press, forthcoming in Dream Boy Book Club, & translated in Revista La Peste, among others. Her work has also been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. She co-hosts the podcast Charla Cultural, focusing on performances and interviews centering underrepresented literary artists. More at karlalamb.com & @vinylowl