Jake Matkov
As an Adult Peek-A-Boo Holds up but It Also Ruins Me
What color drips down the rounded curve
Of my cheek can be found in dark rivers
Cicada symphonies Fragrant jasmine Spanish moss
I call you Already disappearing like the fog
Breathed on a not quite freezing window
Your worst parts & secrets kept in my plaid-lined pocket
Ashes carried like remnants of our ancestors we cannot bury
Or our homeland Scarred by hands digging ditches
I always name you after the meadows & forests & roads
I find most beautiful Ones not yet razed over
By corporations looking for better possibilities
In the vast park between our apartments I stand there
Waiting Watching You rummage into the ground
Deep into its bowels many worms swarm I wish
The earth would open suddenly of its own volition
Spray up the tiny spores of fungi & forgiveness
Growing slowly slowly in the rich soil
Of my cheek can be found in dark rivers
Cicada symphonies Fragrant jasmine Spanish moss
I call you Already disappearing like the fog
Breathed on a not quite freezing window
Your worst parts & secrets kept in my plaid-lined pocket
Ashes carried like remnants of our ancestors we cannot bury
Or our homeland Scarred by hands digging ditches
I always name you after the meadows & forests & roads
I find most beautiful Ones not yet razed over
By corporations looking for better possibilities
In the vast park between our apartments I stand there
Waiting Watching You rummage into the ground
Deep into its bowels many worms swarm I wish
The earth would open suddenly of its own volition
Spray up the tiny spores of fungi & forgiveness
Growing slowly slowly in the rich soil
Self-Portrait with Virgo Horoscope
I hand love like handshake
Into the electric cool sky I bite
Its watermelon hues frame a full-
bodied moon with the window
Constantly I am framing myself
For the benefit of my audience
On the windowsill hyacinths
Scent the garden I tend
To be an extremist did you know
*
Did I tell you I dream in color
Walking up blue squares flattening into
Yellow sponges I place at the horizon
Drop an orange slice down my chest
The crescent constantly strips myself
Clean from all the lick-split trappings
Every day I look at myself photographed
To remind myself how I smile in ways
I never notice during the actual moment
*
After an afternoon storm I bloom
The hyacinths in my left ventricle
Suck drops of sunlight out the air
From the hood of some beat-up Buick
Dynasty I used to own the sun
Exits in the most perfect gold
Orange pink way there’s
The exhilaration I’m making
Headway I pack my bags
Full with images & paintings
I hold so dearly a canvas
Upside down of my painted eyes
Squinting from a smile stretching the bottom
Half of my face an inarticulate suggestion
*
Like how an early morning rainstorm
Enlarges any ocean I sink into
The wet mud a while longer
While the garden I grew is ruined
With nourishment allowed to love
My body some rusted out German
Mid-summer dreamy V6 with a stick
Shift name I can’t even pronounce
Against the sun I arch my back
As one cerulean wave rises its crest
Crashes into another another another
Each one a story I utter made up
Of a thousand stories sinking and settled
Coming together breaking apart
*
Today let my fingers burst over the keyboard
Writing all those little bits and bobs Today trace
The shape of my mouth with a myth on my tongue
Today pluck one hyacinth before another
From a tender earth I gather a bouquet
Today look at my happiness so quiet & ordinary
Into the electric cool sky I bite
Its watermelon hues frame a full-
bodied moon with the window
Constantly I am framing myself
For the benefit of my audience
On the windowsill hyacinths
Scent the garden I tend
To be an extremist did you know
*
Did I tell you I dream in color
Walking up blue squares flattening into
Yellow sponges I place at the horizon
Drop an orange slice down my chest
The crescent constantly strips myself
Clean from all the lick-split trappings
Every day I look at myself photographed
To remind myself how I smile in ways
I never notice during the actual moment
*
After an afternoon storm I bloom
The hyacinths in my left ventricle
Suck drops of sunlight out the air
From the hood of some beat-up Buick
Dynasty I used to own the sun
Exits in the most perfect gold
Orange pink way there’s
The exhilaration I’m making
Headway I pack my bags
Full with images & paintings
I hold so dearly a canvas
Upside down of my painted eyes
Squinting from a smile stretching the bottom
Half of my face an inarticulate suggestion
*
Like how an early morning rainstorm
Enlarges any ocean I sink into
The wet mud a while longer
While the garden I grew is ruined
With nourishment allowed to love
My body some rusted out German
Mid-summer dreamy V6 with a stick
Shift name I can’t even pronounce
Against the sun I arch my back
As one cerulean wave rises its crest
Crashes into another another another
Each one a story I utter made up
Of a thousand stories sinking and settled
Coming together breaking apart
*
Today let my fingers burst over the keyboard
Writing all those little bits and bobs Today trace
The shape of my mouth with a myth on my tongue
Today pluck one hyacinth before another
From a tender earth I gather a bouquet
Today look at my happiness so quiet & ordinary
JAKE MATKOV lives and works in Brooklyn, where he co-curates the Broken Bells poetry reading series. The recipient of fellowships from New York Foundation of Arts (Poetry, 2017) and Queer/Art/Mentorship (Literary, 2015), his poems can be found or are upcoming in Lambda Literary, fields magazine, voicemail poems, and others. Find him on Twitter/Instagram @ooohjakie.