beckys

November 16, 2017November 16, 2017

Some Catastrophic Event

Subduction
when the earth’s crustal plates collide
one plate drawn down to be overridden by another

until I can no longer breathe

and for every mile you dig beneath the surface of the earth
the temperature rises fifteen degrees

my skin burns from the tip of the shovel against my sternum

the earth’s core, hotter than the sun,
is surrounded by an outer layer of liquid

that evaporates my tears as quickly as they fall

I wrap the mantle,
the transition zone where rocks cannot melt or disintegrate,
around my shoulders until I crystallize
break, heal, fracture
into a fingerprint embedded in the gravel

July 30, 2017August 12, 2017

Driving Lessons

My sister learned to drive at fourteen
a 1963 4-door red Rambler
AMC classic Kenosha Cadillac
with seats that lay flat

she would hustle us, my brother and me
out the front door as our parent’s tail lights
kissed the corner goodnight

load us into the back seat
slide into the front
shifting her juice can curls
and clutch and grind
and jerk and bounce
down the driveway
as our Myna bird screamed
‘What you going to do to me now!”
from the front window

0ne night, there we were
my sister, her friend,
my brother, me
at the drive-in
the Texas Chain Saw Massacre
the movie started,
the cries and screams started, the skin masks,
blade chasing, wrong doors,
wrong turns

it was a nightmare
I slept with a flashlight for months
once I heard my sister scream
‘What you going to do to me now!’
as my father stumbled from her room

After my sister died,
I never saw that bird again,
my father said suicide
as if it were a cancer,
as if it couldn’t be helped

July 13, 2017July 20, 2017

Becky Sanvictores lived most of her life in Nebraska and found her true home on the California Central Coast. She studied creative writing at the University of Nebraska and works in the software industry. Her recent poetry has appeared in the Askew Poetry Journal, Red River Review, S-Curves, Hello, and Mad Swirl.

July 9, 2017July 13, 2017