2004 by LeeAnn Olivier

2004

I remember how much we watched the stars 
in our pre-screen silence, spotting sister sigils 
like Scorpius and Taurean, bright bodies emerging 
from the skyline. We whirled into spirals, the songs 
from our lungs dark. Moon after moon, we twisted 
ourselves into eclipses, animal hearts shuttered, our bones 
cages, on the hood of your old Honda civic, candy-apple 

paint scraped and blanched pink from years under 
the Southern sun. Hundreds of miles from any shoreline 
we needed to untangle the sky’s mosaics. We needed to come 
undone in the spaces between the rain hours, a dirge 
of dappled patterns reeling above the roller rink. We’d blot 
out our roots, Cajun and Native, a slew of bad fathers, furled 
fists and flasks inked with cheap whiskey, until their absence 

was nothing. When George W. was the worst villain 
we could fathom, we’d roadtrip to D.C. with our slapdash 
signs like ragged flags, your lion’s mane growing longer 
every year, shot through with red-gold from your mother’s 
Irish blood. I’m almost glad you didn’t live to see the green 
world unbraided into pixels and monsters big as quarries 
lumbering in broad light.

Originally from Louisiana, LeeAnn Olivier is a neurodivergent Cajun poet and community-college professor living in Fort Worth, Texas. In the past five years, she has survived domestic violence, breast cancer, and most recently, an emergency liver transplant. Her poetry explores the power of nature, music, mythology, and fairy tales to help the brain and body heal from trauma.