Poetry from the Plum Ruby Review

Lex Enrico Santí, LCSW, PLLC - A Key Therapy

Three Poems from 2004

Plum Ruby Review, Summer Issue

In the summer of 2004, I published three poems in Plum Ruby Review. I was living in Washington, DC, on the edge of entering an MFA program, politically charged, aesthetically restless, and deeply interested in how language could stretch—visually, ethically, bodily.

These poems come from a time when I was less concerned with coherence and more interested in pressure: how an image holds, how a line breaks under weight, how the body thinks before the mind catches up.

Re-reading them now, I don’t feel the urge to correct them. I feel the urge to listen.

What follows are the poems as they were published in 2004.

What’s for Dinner?

What would it be like

to eat a dinner

with

a plate

6 feet around

that

was served on my

lap

would I tip

it up

and slide

it down

into

my

M O U T H?

Mashing Magical Vegetables

avocado pits

pop out

when you scrape

with the

butter knife

that you shouldn’t have used

to stab your

index finger

to the bone

a hard pit

that you jump into

pull into

and remains

at your

core.

When We Fought With Radicals

Tora Bora, 1982.

Communists surround the mountain

balancing all that is on our back

and all that we have in front of us

we hop  hop  hop

from rock to a

tumbling

rock

that eventually slides

down

  crack

crack as the

trigger pins pulled

grenade is tossed  spinning

up along

all around

as the wondrous view epileptically shaking

around us in 360 degrees

sun goes down

sun goes up

then the crest

is attained

the cherub bushes that stand off

on the edges of my periphery

stare like Mexican peasants standing

with blankets over shoulders

all in green

worshiping

  the descent of

the world’s great sacrifices are always

told in the footnotes

received in a volcano

they are expecting the miracle

to brush across the side of their face

a blessing

He is also an observer here

but the connection

between the two

of us

freedom fighters

separated by religion and culture

and the sound of the fallout

of the blast now

brings the two of us together

one mission

under God.

Looking Back, From Here

I remember writing Radicals like it was yesterday. I was witness to the imagery in my minds eye. It came like a flash. I was scared I would not be able to contain it. Around me, that day, we were going to war to fight against people--and they were, before, our allies. It was an uncomfortable truth. I wrote it with a green pen on a small yellow notepad.

I kept looking out the window of my DC office and felt I was getting away with the greatest gift from the universe. To have the audacity to write, from the seat of power–and to get away with it. I was younger and freer. I was a writer then. I am a writer now.

I’m grateful these poems exist. I’m grateful they were published. And I’m grateful to be able to place them here, now, in a longer arc of writing, therapy, witnessing, and attention.

—

Originally published in Plum Ruby Review, Summer 2004.