Heather Hughes still hangs her heart in her native Miami. She is Associate Editor at Harvard University Press. Her poems explore ecologies of bodies and disembodiment. She writes for Mass Poetry online and leads K-12 workshops for their Student Day of Poetry. She is also an editorial associate at Scoundrel Time. heather often combines poetry with her work as a letterpress printer. She is a tutor and instructor at Bow & Arrow Press at Harvard University. She never outgrew her science fiction & fantasy obsession. All her tattoos have wings.
Heather Hughes
3 Poems
Strapped down in a room. Cream and that ugly green that reflects back ugly: you bruised, terrible, calm. Too much, the mute bulb-flicker. Mountains crowd against the window. I edge in.
Heather Hughes
3 Poems
Specter: Survivor
Strapped down in a room. Cream and that ugly green that reflects
back ugly: you bruised, terrible, calm. Too much, the mute bulb-
flicker. Mountains crowd against the window. I edge in.
The knob flinches in my hand. I see your purple swaying. You
rasp Not me. How tall you look laid out between the sheets.
The door’s yet cracked. Mountains jostle in the hall. I stay,
wishing someone else would show. Maybe you curled into
another green-white waste. Maybe the mountains did this to you, too.
Specter: Supplication
I scan warped riptides.
I believe in endings.
Lighthouses, too.
When I die, plant me in dune grass.
Return.
Read one page aloud each night.
Altitude Sick
I’m woozy and spectral.
A metal band hemorrhages
power chords in the Plaza
outside the cathedral, maybe
an homage to the Black Christ
at the altar, his skin a crackle
of candle-soot, who is resting
before he parades forth
in his wild gold-fringed skirt,
and who doesn’t worry
that the sacred is shakily built
by dismantling glory.
I’m leaving Cusco tomorrow
with three ugly fuschia llama
souvenirs for you.
___________________________________________
Heather Hughes