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Where Are You Going? & Wake Me Up Gently, Xiao Faria da Cunha, 2022. Watercolor on paper. 15 x 22 in.
Three Poems
SIRIANnA HELLELOID
Ariel Ignores the Great Master's Bidding
I crawl my way out of the ocean, grinning. New feet
& spine tall as a whale's blow. I'm land-walking, I'm fin-free, I'm rolling
my ankles & scraping rocks on new knees. My sisters sang
ships to driftwood & swallowed sea shanties
with their teeth. I hear the echo of sailors' screams
when my boss tells me to close the loop with legal & circle back
to the client for approval. I'd shored up my sand dollars in the bank
against the sea foam rising. I'd wanted to comb
out my fortune, picking it up like pennies from the boardwalk,
but my boss is a passenger on a cruise ship,
sick with salmonella & whispering: we are on a journey, together.
He hungers for dollars to under-deliver over-promises.
I find graffiti of a jellyfish on my way to work & share eyerolls
in the bathroom mirror over that email & eat cupcakes
baked by someone on the team. Sales slide on & off like sandals.
A fish too big for its box takes a mediocre walk. I learn money flows
in one direction & alone I cannot turn the tide. But, when I sing,
water still finds the feet of my conversation. Salt walks up my walls.
Hey, my sisters whisper, we said don't trust legs. Their jaws
hook my boss; I consume the petty cash. My toes still recognize riptides.
It's a long swim to the horizon.
nightcallings
"Listen," I say.
"No, you listen," she replies, & a rain of cicadas pours from her mouth.
I asked her name & she spoke a canary
into freefall, crashed its eggs
through the cobbled street, ordered a flight
of birds from the bartender & downed them like shots.
"Listen," I say.
"No, you listen," & lightning tattoos her knuckles.
Her trash climbed over my windowsill, leaving rust prints
& a wide berth of raccoon eyes,
hissing in the mirror. Cotton bloomed in my ears. My receiver
was off the hook, every number left undialed.
"Listen," I say.
"No, you listen," & static thunders between her cheeks.
She didn't speak a name, she spoke a mountain.
She'd been handsome in the way of mountains: rugged.
Rocky with peaks. An outdoors of fir trees.
Her body was an unloaded gun gathered under my skirts.
"Listen," I say.
"No, you listen." Her voice is birdsong — in the morning.
She looked yellow; her name was jaundice.
She looked gray; her name was newsprint.
She looked blue; her name was roadkill.
She looked red in the tomato night.
I wake up smelling like flesh
& say, "Listen."
"No, you listen," I reply.
The perfect arrangement for a hiking insta pic is as follows:
Phone Camera —> Wine Glass in Hand —> Sun
My sister
insists we visit
Lucifer, who lives on the
top of a mountain ravine. She
says: "You cannot die, until you’ve seen his
waterfalls." But I may die climbing to his
edge as reaching him takes
one million steps.
We camp & I
dream I am a house
who does not know how it was
built. I wear a crown of mushrooms in my
rafters, my floors are a garden of mold. My walls
stand sentry to the dirt. There are vineyards in the hills,
roots fat from the falls. The wine of the drought is
sweeter than wine of the watered field. My
sister says his wine is
rich with fruit.
The night passes & we continue
climbing. My sister tells me: "At the
top, there will be a bar & a terrace with a
view. Some people cheat. They drive
up, park for dinner, & drive down."
Less than one million
steps. We are going the
right way. We will earn the
wine, we will toss stones to the
river, the waterfalls will carry us to ground.
My sister
insists we visit
Lucifer, who lives on the
top of a mountain ravine. She
says: "You cannot die, until you’ve seen his
waterfalls." But I may die climbing to his
edge as reaching him takes
one million steps.
We camp & I
dream I am a house
who does not know how it was
built. I wear a crown of mushrooms in my
rafters, my floors are a garden of mold. My walls
stand sentry to the dirt. There are vineyards in the hills,
roots fat from the falls. The wine of the drought is
sweeter than wine of the watered field. My
sister says his wine is
rich with fruit.
The night passes & we continue
climbing. My sister tells me: "At the
top, there will be a bar & a terrace with a
view. Some people cheat. They drive
up, park for dinner, & drive down."
Less than one million
steps. We are going the
right way. We will earn the
wine, we will toss stones to the
river, the waterfalls will carry us to ground.
Sirianna Helleloid is a production accountant by day & by night is mostly asleep; somewhere between the two she writes. She's had poems in JAKE, The Gravity of the Thing, and Catapult Magazine. Her manuscript &maybe was recently a finalist for the 2023 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize. You can find her on X/Twitter at @elelelelloyd.