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ines pujos

 

MORE BLOOD IN THE EAST VILLAGE

 

[MORE BLOOD IN THE EAST VILLAGE]        the laundromats continue

their coined cycle       I’ll need more than just four hours to be saved

egg is French for bump         that closeness to having a belly full

of mirrors
                                                 & seeing you in Alphabet City this morning I sat

outside my face                      so many pounds of us half out before me

(wishing my two little nephews a wonderful first snow)

days walk in my mouth                            en route to my liver’s hem

I sink night                  lover to lover the greenness of small

suitcases & movings

the month of sun                      I pick up wet leaves & press

them to my cheeks       the ground is cold           it’s readying itself for us

I sat outside in a bathtub garden       planning trips instead of food

Frank    you’re shooting me                    you remain horizontal

I trade in stinkbugs            for             a whole almond

 

 

 

HOW MUCH WHISKEY AM I SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEFORE I BECOME A GHOST

 

I don’t know
what it is with people
dropping before the winter.
I take the F train to East Village
where I sit on a bench
in Tompkins Square.
There’s a woman with Leslie’s eyes.
I’ve never met Leslie,
but the woman in the park
has her eyes & she’s feeding
the plump black squirrels.
Maman doesn’t register
on the donor list because
Dad doesn’t want her eyes
to open on a different tree.
No one in America wants my mad blood,
no one in America wants my colon
blossoming pomegranate-sized tumors,
or my unfeminine uterus, unable
to carry an almond.
There must be manuals
on how to keep everything in.
-How to stitch your lips together,
glue eyelashes closed- for the wake.
But no matter how you scrub skin,
bone is bone is bone
& the smell of death,
the loss of pigment,
still lingers behind the ear.

      

 

 

Ines Pujos is a Poet living in the Bay Area and studying to become an Expressive Arts Therapist. She holds a Poetry MFA from NYU and is the poetry editor for Print Oriented Bastards. Her poems have appeared in: The Adroit Journal, Bone Bouquet, Day One, Gulf Coast, and Hayden's Ferry, among others. For more information, check out her website at: inespujos.com