by Lydia Rae Bush

Cycle Down

I'd never touched my grandmother's forehead

on the day we found her passed out,

but I wanted to try.

My father had found it noteworthy that she was still warm,

and my four year old mind didn't know why it mattered,

but it didn't really wonder either.

I documented her temperature with my own palm,

skipped around the square floor plan,

then checked her head again and again

until my mother finally commanded me to stop,

at the last,

right before the skin grew cold.

I still don't know what the dead feel like.

All I've learned since then is what it's like to actually

notice when you're feeling someone slowly die.

Out the gate

after “Woman in a Red Bodice and Her Child” (c. 1901) by Mary Cassatt

Beauty is in

the eye of the beholder.

They'll tell you that whatever the object is

doesn't matter.

But it means.

And you see it,

and you want it,

and you can't control

whether or not you can have it.

Mom's always looking

the other direction.

Your legs don't work,

and you don't know yet.

I too am just trying

to learn how to arch my back.

I'm sorry,

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

You don't need to know this yet.

Someone's going to hand you

anything to see you smile.

Cirrus

after “Child in a Straw Hat” (c. 1886) by Mary Cassatt

One too many thoughts

and now you're tired,

sullen, disappointed

and, sigh, the drama of it all,

the suspense, the waiting

for some adult

to have one less

too few thoughts,

but when they tell you

that you're pouting, sulking,

tempestuous, ask them

if a storm

ever had to

and held their own hand.

Conflict

Thinking about giving you the chance

to take my heart, break it apart,

crumple it like garlic—

two halves, two fists,

while my love

would still exist.

Just finally aware its

reciprocation was an illusion,

it spinning around in a cycle with—

what? Your admiration? How I

would love perfection—

life without risk of losing

worth people always treat me like I've

earned. When how am I to tell?

If you've graciousness or its crumpled shell,

when, I know, I'm so shiny. Circled around all

my hollowness, its current shape from me having

molded myself around all of the people I've lost.

magma

matches

to hide

or find?

she's got striking eyes

BIO: Lydia Rae Bush (she/her) is a poet exploring themes of embodiment and social-emotional development. Rae’s work is Best of the Net nominated and appears in publications such as Querencia Press, Corporeal, and Bleating Thing. When not writing, Lydia can be found singing and dancing, especially in bed when she is supposed to be going to sleep. Her chapbook Free Bleeding is out now with dogleech books. You can connect with her on Bluesky @lrbpoetry.bsky.social or on Instagram @LRBPoetry.

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