Lucia Galloway’s poetry collections are Venus and Other Losses (Plain View, 2010) and Playing Outside (Finishing Line, 2005). Recent work appears in Tar River Poetry, among many others. Galloway also won the 2014 Quills Edge Press inaugural poetry chapbook competition for The Garlic Peelers. Her new collection, Some Words for Meanwhile, has just been released by FutureCycle Press.
The Legs for It
Rust rouges your fingertips and thumb
when you rub the circumference
of the cast-iron skillet you put away without drying.
Rust the color of war paint, of dried blood.
Some fruits don’t ripen until they fall.
In the overheated kitchen you carve an avocado,
slice creamy crescents into a bowl of greens.
Here is no red in ripeness, no blood.
There’s an old slimming diet of just red meat.
You have the legs for it:
for finishing triathlons, winning the broad jump.
Your swift backward kick slams shut the door,
your thighs flash pale in dim light.
Rust rouges the fingertips and thumb.
There’s an old slimming diet of just red meat.
Some fruits don’t ripen until they fall.
Rust rouges your fingertips and thumb
when you rub the circumference
of the cast-iron skillet you put away without drying.
Rust the color of war paint, of dried blood.
Some fruits don’t ripen until they fall.
In the overheated kitchen you carve an avocado,
slice creamy crescents into a bowl of greens.
Here is no red in ripeness, no blood.
There’s an old slimming diet of just red meat.
You have the legs for it:
for finishing triathlons, winning the broad jump.
Your swift backward kick slams shut the door,
your thighs flash pale in dim light.
Rust rouges the fingertips and thumb.
There’s an old slimming diet of just red meat.
Some fruits don’t ripen until they fall.
© 2019
Lucia Galloway
Lucia Galloway was a Featured Poet at the November 2019 Second Sunday Poetry Series
Lucia Galloway was a Featured Poet at the November 2019 Second Sunday Poetry Series