Martha
by Adelaide Juelfs
We hadn’t lived in her room yet, so
the ceiling fan spliced the sun
into a production of Newport and Redeemer.
Driving one-handed down PCH, I
felt my heartbeat
and felt him feeling. Your hand, your
Mother’s. Over
my kitchen, smoke, and
Martha dances with my sisters
while cloaked in bedsheets. On the counter,
red mouths and
boots clink the marble
as pith lands on hardwood and
whiskey songs
play the night into delirium. His hand:
Instilling, distilling, braided hair under the blanket
in the dark.
Tonight I want to dream
of speaking.
Naming
everything you know. The sole
source of light—a daughter trying
to push back
another hour in the fire-lit living room; Jerusalem;
the apartment pool, metallic.
This is what Martha said
to the bowerbird book kept in the bathroom.
The fulcrum of what might have been, a body
full of dependent clauses. After summer arrives,
when the sun sets, when alone,
when not
alone. Names are
what the body cannot reach. The rain is her,
is my sister, or
I am. If I am, if I had a bird in these hands,
I would open them. If I
had these hands a second time, I would.
Adelaide Juelfs is an avid reader and writer from Costa Mesa, California. An alumna from the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, she focuses on poetry and draws inspiration from Ada Limón, Louise Glück, Anne Carson, and the one and only Taylor Swift. When not writing, she can be found playing waterpolo, collecting shells at the beach, or drinking an unhealthy amount of coffee. You can email her at addie.juelfs@gmail.com or find her on Instagram at @adelaidejuelfs.