Carmen Giménez Smith

H P

Happy Trigger

Off-season and in
the burnt forest
of my nightgown, a feral
undergrowth that marks
me as burial site —
to be still enough or
just enough.

My arms become fat arms:
hearth. I eat dirt for doubt,
a secret bleached
old as lie. I out-want
like a spindly
winged monster.
If I were a bug —
were I — then you'd hope
for reparation, and paint
more brown into the plot.

Photo of a Girl on a Beach

Once when I was harmless
and didn’ t know any better,

a mirror to the front of me
and an ocean behind,

I lay wedged in the middle of daylight,
paper-doll thin, dreaming,

then I vanished. I gave the day a fingerprint,
then forgot.

I sat naked on a towel
on a hot June Monday.

The sun etched the inside of my eyelids,
while a boy dozed at my side.

The smell of all oceans was around us —
steamy salt, shell, and sweat,

but I reached for the distant one.
A tide rose while I slept,