Two Poems

by Kim Harvey

Transly Translation Agency

What if Eros

is a selfish sylph, mortal yet soulless flyby nymph.

Silent sphinx in the sky. Son of Chaos, a thumb-

sucking imp stymying us with his off-rhythmic

writhing. Shy little ants-in-the-pants dancing

cherub crouched behind clouds shooting aimless

arrows as we all draw straws of sorts, tiny sour

omens — SweeTart hearts hand-picked from a red-

rimmed candy bowl, every one of them a maybe.

I’m not joking. No kiss me, no always, no xoxo

for me. Just maybe.

First of all, fuck that.

But then I’m thinking, what if maybe is enough.

I mean, a world where anything is still possible.

You know? Maybe maybe is as good as it gets.

Are You Paying Attention Yet?

for Marcy & for Keith

A seagull dropped a fried chicken

thigh on my left wrist.

I do not know how to read this

augury.

Or the old woman we passed on the corner

who looked me in the eye and said

Love is a story and yours is over.

Of this I am certain —

I will never love anything as much

as Willie Nelson loves weed.

Then there was the day the red hawk

fell from the sky, dead at my feet.

I was walking down Market Street

back to work from the food trucks

when a man in a bandana rode by

on a unicycle, boombox blaring

Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground,

Willie crooning fly on, fly away.

What is it about all these

damn birds? Gulls, they say,

bring messages from God

back to the mortal world.

I don’t even eat chicken —

well, once or twice by mistake.

There is no mistaking

a dead hawk in your path.

Someone is trying to tell me

something.

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Kim Harvey is a queer SF Bay Area poet and Associate Editor at Palette Poetry. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. You can find her work in Poets Reading the News, Rattle, Radar, Barren Magazine, Wraparound South, Black Bough Poetry, Kissing Dynamite, and elsewhere. She is the 1st Prize winner of the Comstock Review’s 2019 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award and the 3rd Prize winner of the 2019 Barren Press Poetry Contest. Twitter: @kimharveypoet. Web: www.kimharvey.net