poetry

Two Poems by C.T. McGaha

bluebonnets
 

like holding a book up to look at a tree i saw you
standing in bluebonnets just north of fort worth

and the umbrella you held dropped like asshole ralph
like eyelids like hopes in east texas like you

want me to drop everything sometimes i do
but sometimes i just need my fucking pictures

in cellophane preserved with little light
to damage them i could just drop them

like sears tower pennies like new york pigeons
like lee oswald's rifle like marilyn’s panties

tissue paper wrapped flowers rub against one
another. like a bacon-eating pig i saw you there

standing in bluebonnets just north of fort worth 
wasn’t raining. your umbrella broke in hand

and you cried. when did you start crying? when
you held me? my little oshkosh overalls grass- 

stained. my ex-fiancée started crying 
a year ago. she asked me what she looked like

i ran out of the room screaming
bluebonnets bluebonnets bluebonnets

 

 

 

Sister
 

Two trees growing together
under the shadow
of fort worth texas 
and we are in the yard

we watch in the yard

as the holy hot bird feeder
is rattled to the earth
and the trees shoot skyward
taking tire swings with them
that smash together
—it’s a makeshift eight

and a swarm of bluebirds
plume the sky 
like they can fly enough 
to eclipse our mother

standing above us with 
hands like bluebonnets
that dart and sway
in the flat land wind

we sit bull on the lawn
clockhands in three
separate dots
and we watch

 

 

 

C.T. McGaha is a writer from Charlotte, NC. His work has been previously published in Gambling the Aisle, Haunted Waters' Press' From the Depths, and Crab Fat Literary Magazine. When he's not writing, he's driving down Central Avenue, blasting Outkast's "Aquemini."