Lucian Mattison: California Poets Part 10, Three Poems

Lucian Mattison

April 2nd, 2026

California Poets: Part X

Lucian Mattison

Three Poems

Lingua Veicolare

Two wide moons pulled by sound, we listen

to meaning elbow through thick rhododendron,

night dew on leaves, mustaches and lashes,

as we land on the lens—ojo to occhio.

Each translated word is a constellation point, space

inscribed on stelae with a charred Lambrusco cork.

Expression flashes comprehension—Io

like ayin perpetually blinks in and out—inexhaustible

currency exchanged in our favor. Rich with patience,

and so little at tongue tip, the commerce

of the unspoken makes one word worth countless

possibilities, a generosity that hangs onto what it can

at a dinner table. Guests in another’s house—

a Milanese journalist, Calabrian teacher—eyes announce

speech, small muscles shaping expression,

exaggerated with wild confidence—I think 

I understand and its permutations.

Mouths open O’s, breath gathers in the throat,

so far and equal to a child trying teeth

on the pins of phrase, until it turns, sinks

locked thoughts from the shackle with a heavy thunk,

key ring sagging the conversation’s belt.

Mock Saint

A breed of sadness creeps onto the face, a fraction

widened, too often caught scrolling through time-

stamped selves buried under a bank of photo

memory—how it all gets wilder, heavier.

The five monks gather behind the eyes,

recognize these multiple versions of self—

some well-fed and rosy, others the lank serenity

of youth, palms open to table scraps.

The holy scoff as I lean forward,

feel the stacking of soft-cover books

in my mid-section, wear a dumb, satisfied smile.

They say, don’t greet him, he who lives in abundance.

Listen to the kitchen, chimes and vibrations

of the wine glasses when they kiss

their neighbors’ cheeks, hung upside-down

like sleeping bats. They sing loudest when empty,

breakable flamingo on one leg, tells me

to savor the months of fermentation

enriching the body as layers of sugar build,

belly the stacked biofilm afloat at the surface

of the gallon vessel of effervescing tea. I am

so concerned with my weight, though nothing else is.

I joke with lack of discipline, spoon out fat

from the top of the stockpot broth.

It swirls like satellite images, white curls of

weather on a rolling boil, the world in miniature stirred

and stored in mason jars. Like everyone else,

I take better care. Soon after, I lose what care

was temporarily there. Again, flipping through

the photo album of our distortion in a data cloud,

it’s me with so many people, past selves, their eyes

trained on the camera as if asking for recognition.

I do my best to shed the shame around an aging joint,

try not to think of indulgence as a failure of love

for the self. Isn’t it quite the opposite?

The pendulum swings back, strips away layers

of excess and image, admiring the Gautama

falling over from pained hunger—

or deathlessness—back to painting

the self the unsaintly who picks sediment

from purple tongue, animal fat from incisors,

attempting to fill up with enough of this

physical world, so that among the grit and gristle,

there remains more joy to outweigh us.

Undoing

the thought: leave the city,

but the head stays

down, constant hiss of interstate stretched

across a pillow

like thumbs pushed along taut drum-ridge skin.

What trees?

What

quiet ripening of the ear

under the canopy? Remain asleep

through all the noise and fumes

as if there’s need for

permission to pick the self out of it.

From overripe persimmon

to mangosteen, sections

of the peeled fruit

fall out of the husk,

little encyclopedias unnested in the palm.

Landing in a main street town,

it’s distant birds, vineyard valley

wind, an unripe olive

of a fly

the only vibration in the ear.

Is the busyness of the head just an afterimage

of prior things heard,

translated, and transcribed?

Only now, it’s obvious how

the lemon branch was weighed down

onto the soil

by too many ripe globes,

holding on

for what reason?—fruit skin given

to split and ants.

Months should be enough

to unhear the past’s traffic

to begin to listen again, grow

to a rhythm of inner water.

The feast or famine of rain

walks us like an egret

wading out.

Out waiting,

the bird stands like peace

on two stilts, hundreds of feet

away. Step closer and it loads

coiled legs, springs up,

wings beating the silence, as it rises, glides

a circle,

lands a few yards further

down the creek.

At first, it’s like a cruel joke.

Will we ever get closer to the animal?

This silence?

The probing oak root

undoes a section of the sidewalk

on the way home,

barely noticing

the concrete rippled like a rug

bunched against a table leg.

With more time, we brush

pieces of a stone cloak from shoulders,

sprout leaves

from fingers, ears two knots

in the trunk as it widens,

to another ring of seasons.

Author Bio:

Lucian Mattison is a US-Argentinian poet and translator and the author of three books of poetry, Curare (C&R Press, 2022), 2023 International Latino Book Awards, Silver Medal Winner; Reaper's Milonga (YesYes Books, 2018); and Peregrine Nation (Dynamo Verlag, 2017). His work has won the Puerto Del Sol Poetry Prize, nomination for the Pushcart Prize, and appears in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Adroit Journal, The Brooklyn Review, The Cincinnati Review, CutBank, Fugue, Grist, Hayden's Ferry Review, The Nashville Review, The Nature of Our Times (Paloma Press, 2025), and Permanent Record: Poetics Towards the Archive (Nightboat Books, 2025). He received his MFA from Old Dominion University and is currently based out of Oakland, California.