By Nikki Ochoa
One capsule of silver jubilee and I’m a twanging pony in the Texas heat.
Once I learned money was for spending the morning glories always opened.
I thank each one before climbing into my jalopy and poisoning the earth.
It’s a casino worn loop station’s rule, the checks and balances that make the deep contour of Jupiter algorithmically perfect.
As the sun’s solar zenith unlocks the 3rd hour of waiting in your truck on the mexi-cali border line. I fell asleep, no offense to your grand offerings,
the light just so peacefully mixed with the smell of gasoline and your worn out passenger seat.
Heavy handed comfort.
Highly vulnerable kidney shaped desire,
and barbed wire fence.
Everyone I know as billboards on the I-10 East.
Using myself as a sundial.
Magic out of engines,
fire,
and rock.
Quantum entanglement at the thrift store.
Morning cutting the corner of my eyes like crystals,
Today’s sunrise flavor stunned a corporate lawyer to make light and plead. Your tax dollars hard at work. The crash of a call on hold soundtrack.
Grease bucket, are you going to tell me your dark secret?
Or will you make me guess.
Thank you for showing us dying is okay.
There are worse things,
Like being cheated on after hanging a picture frame of you above the mantle place.
My swamp ash,
You are not roadworthy and you’ve fucked up the sonic geometry in this bitch.
God said you have to attend the informational session before ascending to the golden mansion of enlightenment, And the exit test is all open answer questions.
I could lay in a field and let it all wash over me
Could you?
Or do you need to reload the feed?
Some plans are made to fall through
Thanks for asking anyway,
I’ll stay home, desperately cutting out words from a silky magazine to fulfill prophecy.
Who told you that time moves forward, and when?
You were frightened even though we were triumphant,
And invincible in our giddiness.
As the outskirts of sleep remove the day,
Fingertips lay where river deltas twist back to the center of your palm.
Burning like a star through the Anza Borrego desert
How could I reciprocate such majesty?
You’re a pillar, and I quiver.
Lucky me,
The sun also sleeps.
Nikki Ochoa is an ancient baby from Kudzu covered forests.
Ucla BA 2015 Cal Arts MFA 2023
@vomitchild