Alexandra Mattraw: California Poets Part 8, Four Poems

Alexandra Mattraw

January 8th, 2025

California Poets: Part VIII

Alexandra Mattraw

Four Poems

Sand Dollar 

a star 

inside you 

crush easy

linen whisper

how tide 

dollars bleach 

mermaid tarps 

recall visible 

animals dawn 

common helix 

blush neckline 

orchids raised 

by degrees 

7-11 sage 

burns velvet 

mall climate 

ghosts tide 

antlers slow 

smoke pooling

underfoot

Behold! 

The cuttlefish 

jet sister 

ink skirted

whirlpool I

pray her

chameleon

holes blind 

us, coin

her story

Paternal Industrial Complex

For Jay Gatsby

In gardens, men

like blue moths

whisper of champagne 

stars. I watch the sun slit

draw cataracts, bear 

the city station

servant of orange toil

and lemon pyramids.

Halved, pulpless machines 

extract the hour,

garnish the gold 

bar and forgotten brass 

guests too young to 

know the last future

or the first thrown stone

sleeper tracks once dividing 

a country of railroads.

“Did you keep it?” 

a voice will ask.

Pitched yellow laughter

is easy, tipped out.

Coastline swells 

the century by 8 degrees,

dissolves the heart-slunk 

clink as its own 

coin of breath.

Too young to know 

the swimmers we'll make 

with our shawls

of exhaust, bobbed

cars like mouths

that swing and chatter

gin ice melt

naming the earth 

lurch away from 

the hottest day.

Already, here and there

become seafoam 

siege of an opal,

fruit rind sky 

soon to peel under 

this husky blue flutter. 

Each windshield town 

dances alive 

for one time. 

Epigenetics

at the injection

site I saw

white blood cells

finally admit their

bias and I 

who am already 

made of tests

pills reports and

nightly ledgers count

lab cotton balls

stored in glass

jars recall when

he yelled willed

me backwards falling

off the spooked 

horse before leaping 

over the farm’s 

old barbs leather 

arteries I open

for results numerate 

lead traces stuck 

like long pocketed 

gum sort feelings

with an index

of unpaid water 

bill my therapist 

for another hour 

think what happens

when a biopsy 

arrives at morning 

believe hope is 

also death is 

a daughter I 

cannot order around

what fences keeps

what is free

and what decays

grass growing yellow

from roof shingles

in me every

day winnows hills

I live from

arsenic seeds

rain stems

and metal under

your boot heels

I offer you

my child who

is also your

soil runoff

blood results are

not chemical truths 

but we are

are we repeating 

this familial 

witness

Land Scars

wed to water

and rapid debris

at the dump

she stains rebar 

blackberry and chin 

flash of children 

where windy songs

unearth trochee feet

darkening sand inside

tomorrow quiet hope

runs her tidal 

sweat of patterned 

marrow call out 

of the landing 

sea accident can’t

concentrate dynamite or

scour scrap metal

barbs flung from 

wishing trees gash

pine bled impact 

gapes her chin

aftermath sways how 

can I sing

through my stitches?

Author Bio:

Alex Mattraw is a queer poet, parent, and educator living in Berkeley. Her third full length collection of poetry, Raw Anyone, was published with Brooklyn’s Cultural Society in 2022, and two of her four chapbooks live at Dancing Girl Press. Recent poems and reviews are featured or forthcoming in Action, Spectacle; The Brooklyn Rail; Lana Turner; Jacket2; Posit; Tupelo Quarterly; and VOLT. A frequent collaborator with other writers and artists, Alex is also the founder and curator of the Bay Area reading series, Lone Glen, now in its twelfth year. alexmattraw.com