Peyton Burgess: I Breathed Underwater

behind isla de colchon desnudo and through the open window

with this dousing of sunsetted hands the punch has come upon me  

wet  your peak shines

make  these lips up then down          

no evening coats our head from sleep  

the last saltwater plaque on bodies, over

my gringo plays soft so you forgive me being mean

and our fly stops buzzing at a song only for tell

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I.

With no running water came paper plates and plastic forks.

II.

None remember

sleepless lips pressed

up against satiated earlobe

muttered ugly to her you.

III.

There is a girl I try from:

She doesn’t remember me.

I call her amnesia infidelity.

III.

And the moss

                                      curled at fingertips

     While up something not there like time would come

                                      And you’d point to the river and say, run it

The night Rem yelled

                        after Frank Stanford

I had the red shirt on

I had beer shards stuck in my flip flops

I sat on your steps lucky but exposed

I laid my head on sweat legs

I breathed underwater

With my lips

On knees

Lines of Cohen inspired

My slight of hand

A hand that disappears

Like keys dropped

Overboard and descending into deeper blues

O Power Magnolia Bloom, the night

You found me

I threw down my knives

Let me ignore yellow signs and hang my limbs out streetcar windows

Let our bottles of Chilean pinot be bottomless and our blushing breasts topless

To forget to get fucked over

To not see the eyes on our dancing
 

Editor's Note: These poems originally appeared on La Fovea.

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Peyton Burgess is the author of The Fry Pans Aren’t Sufficing.