Megan Breiseth: California Poets Part 8, Three Poems
January 8th, 2025
California Poets: Part VIII
Megan Breiseth
Three Poems
Tax the Sun
By the fourth day in the forest we hear each other different.
The slap of cards on the tablecloth about as loud as the trees.
Robyn arranges solar lanterns so we can look forward to the dark.
Our little speaker plays folk songs creekside and we keep to the shade.
James hears the chorus as Text the Sun.
I’d let it know the blanket between us is plenty for our peace.
Back home, PGE taxes the sunlight we gather from the very air we breathe.
Charges us to let them take the power and make them give it back.
We are one more thing held in the fog’s damp glow.
Our corneas breathe their oxygen directly from the air.
We kayak the coast, visit birds on rocks with big red feet.
They dive 20 yards down and emerge with multiple fish.
The song's real name doesn’t fit in this poem, Texas Sun.
Out here no air filters, no water filters, no barrier between skin and dirt and ash.
Redwood families stand on a web of roots, forest wide and only a few feet down.
The tallest make leaves to eat light and different leaves to drink from the air.
They share it down to those who can’t yet reach.
We come back every summer, pack the same items but show up different.
I try to remember the welcoming prayer.
It says everything I encounter is part of my healing.
The prayer is to remember it.
Mufflers and Birdsong
feeling too good
where everyone accelerates
we wake to the schedule
radio, skid, and breeze
we arrive by light
follow the crooked laws
but try not to take their
shape, try to keep our shadows
on to shape our shelter
shape our nature
shape our very year of weather
tires on rain
salt bath on hip-knot
the song on repeat
while we keep being
different while the same sun
jitters inside and sets and I get
the kind of sadness
where memories won’t take
we freeze dance
we accidental headbutt
remember sweat and sleep
past the stop sign
How You Feel Anything
I shed my knowing
shed my dirty coins.
Empty my bag
of sand and trash
while blood carries patiently
the world.
My time-marked hide is spent.
Pushable. And in so few ways mine.
Green brown mud dust air.
Green brown mud dust air.
Blood on concrete.
Blood on earth.
Blood pushes time
into us
even as we scream
in the street.
Thighs shake with effort.
Hips and jaws grip.
Scream in the elements.
All the water in us
unhides our bodies
loosens their call.
Darkness threads the ground
we stand.
Voices we gust
across Oakland.
Each thread so
knit into us.
Sap on concrete.
Pollen smear.
Being berry-stained
is our sun grip.
Everything we need
grew in soils of blood.
We are fruit in a system
and bear each year of weather.
Author Bio:
Megan Breiseth is the author of the chapbook Zia (Mrs. Maybe Press) and co-author of the chapbook the longer you stay here (Featherboard). Her poems have appeared in Parentheses, Rise Up Review, sPARKLE and bLINK, antiphony, and Word For/ Word. Her full-length manuscript, Sun Blue, was recently selected as a finalist for this year’s Airlie Prize. She lives in the Bay Area with her wife, son, pets, and plants.
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