StaciNichols

Her Thoroughbred Eyeball

Her thoroughbred eyeball
opened out in all directions
like ripples in water--
her eyeball will scare like that
for a creaky gate or a lizard in the bushes

She nudges my stomach and my feet lift off the ground
she dents my boots when she steps on them
but she has the pounding heart of a child in
their first darkness

When that eyeball flinched
I just hugged her neck--
pressing my cheek to her muscular jaw
wishing I could reach down and pick her up
like a daycare kid

I remind her with a gentle tone
that she’s a big girl
but still that eyeball will swell
like a clap of thunder back into her skull
at the sight of pavement and trash cans--
she bucks me off
the way one recoils in an almost car crash--
squealing, bracing herself

Even when she runs
and her hair untangles itself in her tug boat’s wake
she only knows her weaknesses--
the single diversion
this animal that sleeps standing up
will allow herself
is letting her chin sag when I scratch her just right

Stories Like That

I have been thinking
about the story you told

the starting quarterback
with the muscles
sense of humor
cocky
seducing your high school teacher
just in an afternoon
like that
it sounded fun
just after school
one day
at her house
how do
you even
get to your
teacher’s
house? How
do you
then get
your hand
under
her shirt?
Your lips
on her,
near her?

This power--17 years old--
so foreign--
“I do not,” gulping
“have these kind,” swallowing
“of stories.”
I have white
knuckles, short
nervous breaths.
I push away.
As sand paper.
Cactus.
There used to be panic,
nightmares, flashbacks.

I wish there were
stories like that: care free
easy stories
about things just
happening by themselves
like that

I would brag--
let me tell you
about the time
I opened my fist and
spread my fingers wide
and straight and
things drifted off
in the air

and went wherever
they went without

rules
where I might

have sneaked into the
exchange student’s room
in the middle
of the night

crotch thumping
fight or flight
like speakers

in my veins I would’ve,
should’ve turned his

doorknob or where
I might have let
Erik Hoover do me

in

the dark, wet

warm grass
of

the outfield

My War Face

it’s in my blood--I
was made to overtake
the person in front
of me--running

the chase felt like
a river’s current in my hair--
my feet pushed the earth
spinning it

and when the air
stopped resisting me
because every
movement was perfect

I became a dogged
wheel--I was the heart
of a champion
I could never lose

the hunt, the finish
line became my unshaken
quiet and it put my
pain away