It was always like this:
on the lonely walk \ up the parking garage.
by Eleanor Ball
December bites like a rat.
Wind slices open your chest,
starlings cawing, coughing
up their hearts.
We slide hushed promises
through well-oiled lips
and chattering teeth, cartons of Fong’s
dangling from our fingers
on the lonely walk
up the parking garage.
Our bodies burn
of wasabi, black ice,
snow-streaked memory.
We are always like this:
losing and loving
in everything
but name. Drawing
lipstick hearts on mirrors,
receipts, paper napkins, anything
that can be torn or smashed
beyond the recognition
of a promise. Night hovers
at the top of the stairs,
then trips and falls over the horizon.
It was always there,
that chill in my chest.
When I cough up my heart,
ice-hot and slick, a starling
leaps from a power line.
Pinwheels through the dark,
screaming in triumph.
Eleanor Ball is a queer writer from Des Moines, Iowa. Her work has appeared with ballast, fifth wheel press, Psaltery & Lyre, and others, and she is a reader for Abode Press. Find her online @eleanorball.bsky.social and eleanorball.carrd.co.
