I35 Creativity Corridor: Desiree Morales, Austin, TX, April 6

Downtown Austin circa 2010

140 CHARACTERS

April, 2013

Sparrows trapped in the grocery store with choosing apples it is the 21st century and astonishingly little can be done about that. #poemaday

The man who makes my coffee says something I can't hear over the steam, about elk, or women. Still early and dark out in the rain. #poemaday

These are some ways a flat expanse will trap you: voicemail, garbage, a dead stag by the highway, misplaced music, yeses, and yes. #poemaday

Dancing Hair Down

Saturday night means

Never having to say

You’re sorry

140 CHARACTERS

April, 2014

A woman waiting for a bus folds her face to her knees, her hair waterfalling down. A tree felled nearby, an almost finished house. #poemaday

Afternoon light slices apples in the kitchen. Foggy, trying to remember "Kindness." Someone says "what's next in news is inward." #poemaday

This is driving. "The otherness of the self" up next on the radio, Jupiter in tonight's sky, I'm lost in last year's neighborhood. #poemaday

140 CHARACTERS

April, 2014

Apocalypse drought news, I practice remembering blood oranges, post-water future, a gasp of color. Like violence they tasted warm. #poemaday

Listlessly shop for things I won't buy. Headache, pollen-eyed, nothing in the day but an ugly thrum, I know I'm not alone in this. #poemaday

Backfired flowers I wish I invented pollen-stained sheets but it's happening. The snapping sound I love about "stripped the bed." #poemaday

A magazine says that to start lucid dreaming you must continually ask yourself, Am I dreaming? Eventually, the answer will be Yes. #poemaday

Shoulder to Shoulder

for Hoa

Ashes are the best part of fire

or,

 after I changed,

                  the sheets

still smell

                  like campfire

Aquarius!

Square your shoulders,

Topple the apple-dream

of tomorrow’s picking and     Be!     Here!    Now!

It’s not too late

                  for the late race

Let’s meet tonight

                  the back patio and the chinaberry tree

All the poets lying

                  shoulder to shoulder

to see something the sky says     (Comets!)

                                    Before we realized it

                                    We had to see each other everyday

(excuse me James, for stealing your stuff)—

This is the part of the poem     where I say,

I stepped away

                  to write your name

 on my hand,

                  so tomorrow

 I can remember

                   how much I miss you

Photo by Johan Beisser

Desiree Morales is a poet and educator living in Austin, Texas. 

She received her BA in Creative Writing and Linguistics from Pitzer College 

in Claremont, California.