Subtle Places Buried Near My Shoulder

   I.

       for
forty minutes without 
moving a muscle
   I cover my heart

      strange 
movements of 
water drown

    like flour 
pushing 
against
the 
fog

         desire becomes 
       elements
of breath trapped 
  in this realm

  my soul 
creases 
as liquid

        of 
     dry 
     moisture

   surfs  into 
incantatory 
syllables

II.

next the sound
 
     screeches in my 
  hand moves from
one dough 
to
  experience freshly 
made basal tears

  here 
skin
  travels instead 
  of song
against the
kitchen cling-clang
  and how dry the steel feels 
  like powder
ears against the smell 
  of dry oxygen

my
  organs 
completely 
anoxic

III.

  I stand in 
the lingering 
association
  as if dreams
       could 
     speak 
     in
the rhythm of 
     thought

I cover
my thighs with 
  sorrow

my
 
cornea to 
rinse
      my mind 
    in the 
    shower

IV.

I
    fall into a coma 
     of
     motorcycles passing 
   near my window

      their
    toes creaking 
    with
    little resistance

I am
   homebound in 
the ocean
   of grief

    the blur radiating 

I have held
  this     bed 
more often the
   ligaments and muscles 
than I have held anyone's 
friendship

 
my 
      deltoid 
still
     weeps from
 
pulling harm in a
   subtle painful motion
 
the only
   medicine that 
heals me
into
a quiet
   acceptance that I 
    am
   here
are

  buried 
little 
places
   near my
       shoulder 

condensing

    to a 
    surrender
free of giving

***

Absence of Nowhere

I miss the small
perennial
ryegrass and
small
  hours just to touch
a piece of wonder
whose
     names I navigate around my feet like
    wooden shrubs the messy atmosphere

or a log
 I find most obsessing
hides
     beneath my forage like a child
   watching an extension of

miscellaneous
    items florets toys
thin glasses the backyard fodder

I find most 
       satisfying to touch a piece of
     oddly complemented grapevines
stretching behind my tia's house

the absence
of nowhere

 soiled with greenery

  the absence of her
        prunes its
    silk and elder

         torment

***

Hermelinda Hernandez is of Zapoteco descent from Oaxaca, Mexico. She’s an aspiring poeta who is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at CSU, Fresno. She is currently exploring grief, the body, language, and sound. She is also a graduate artist at Juan Felipe Herrera’s Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio at Fresno State. Her poetry has appeared in Small Press Traffic, Acentos Review, Zone 3, Poets.org, Honey Literary, The Ana, Voicemail Poems, and elsewhere.

You can find her on IG @ ceci_herm