Nhattaleah Nichols ------ four poems

Together

You only like me when you’re drunk

And I only like you when I’m lonely

But when we sleep

Our hands reach like branches

Pulling us up

Past the Brownstones

Soundly together

Magical Realism

I’m just going to say it now in

the season of bare branches

Just how I wanted to say it then

In the season of spiders and promises and leaves

You are not the first to not love me

I called that story magical realism (the one with the snow and the conditions that I read to you while balancing the book

hot tea

and myself in your lap)

Your long face opened and laughed, said:

You think two people in love is magical realism

I looked down

to the right

sloshing hot tea on bare skin

as if to say

How Foolish

How could I have implied that in the snow

your big hands wouldn’t support my spine in the spiraling flakes?

Your big hands and long face are not the first to not love me

And in the snow

What could be more magical

And more real

Than love

Today

I’m going to sit here

on these rat ridden concrete slabs

in a city that smells like feet

all summer.

waiting for work

and imagine that you are here

Saying those words to me:

Skykomish Snohomish Snoqualmish

And telling me about the Joy you felt

The first time you had a Huckleberry

After leaving the lands of our people

And I’ll tell you about how I didn’t know that Salal

Was the name of a plant and not

All low-lying shrubbery

We can say Kalakala

And talk mountains and

Forget about our exile

The one that brought us happiness

Hay Fever

I woke up at 5 AM alone

My face swollen

 from every scrap of flora the world over trying not to be lonely

I know! It's awful, but it's also ok

It's just spring, and I know that myself

and the rest of the known world

want to smell dirty hair

Too warm skin

And be slightly disgusted

And completely in love