Transitive

Somewhere in here is a list of things pulled from your various memories:

(you) mail man (to Saturn, no return address)
(as the boy in the mirror, you) object (to) permanence
(I) dust bunnies (that still carry your child-like wonder in their buck teeth)
(you) milk weeds in your backyard (for a mother’s comfort)
(as a teenager, you strategically) shop regulations (to show you’re a consumer of culture)
(you) store hours (in the tip jars of restaurants away from “home”)
(you) drag show (into the back of your closet for midnight)
(sneakily, you) slip dresses (out the front door)
(you) strip search (results for secret bars you’ve memorized the routes to)
(you) repeat offense (they say, by walking down the street)
(you) smoke houses (and stomp them out in the suburban grass)
(you) keep sakes (in places outside your body to stay alive: in your favorite corner shop, by the creek, in a crush’s eyes)
(I know you) Miss California (before you’ve even seen its sun)
(you) check mates (on Hinge)
(you) address numbers (in national murder statistics)
(you) finish lines (in Gilmore Girls episodes)
(you) study halls (and how to escape through them)
(we) turn lanes (into better confessionals than any church has offered us)
(you) nail guns that your father gave you when you were 12. (Leave them like murder suspect photos on the wall.)
(you) stock markets (with sapphic figs and lavender soap)
(you) eye glasses (in sleazy bars in case there’s anyone who fears your power)
(you) block parties (from entry—not the other way around)
(in awe, I watch you) moving trucks
(I ask for tips on how to) battle wounds
(you) blow torches (like they’re candles before they burn the witch)
(you) ice boxes (until they fall from your name like frozen twigs)
(you) train tracks (to not follow their maker)
(you mock your father) shooting stars (by adding astrological charms on your choker)
(somewhere he’s still pointing his hunting gun to the heavens)
(while you’re) curling iron (skylines around your finger like LA’s wedding ring to you)

Aubade for someone else’s mourning

I go to the birdbath…
I stick my whole hand in it.
Make those maple leaf
canoes sink without a whisper.
Fingers stretched out
like dirt-dragged feathers.
In kindergarten,
they strung up
our paint print turkeys
like paper quilt squares
on purple yarn powerlines.
Wash me clean of
all I’ve touched so I can hide,
a soggy tuft tucked
in the thicket:
every educational fabrication
I’ve reached out
and mistaken for wind.
Before I prick my thumb
on the tip of my own
slithering tongue.
Before leave my prints
and bloody the water.
Before I muddy it with similes
and pretext cannon fodder
for the next sparrow
that flocks to the remnants
of my baptism,
for the next jay that was taught
to steal eggs to survive
this night’s cataclysm.
I lift my knuckles from the bowl.
Shiver them dry
as the sun peels November
from its face.

Notification Haze

Q: what will we do about the violence this time?
A: We will go to the park
after committing an act of radical anti terrorism.

Someone replaced
the carousel park ponies with war horses,
green chlorophyll pre-smudged
onto the bottoms of levitating hooves.

Q: Who was it?
A: Someone who cares about our sanity.

We pay for another ride,
this time, knights. The metal slats of armor
covering our faces resembling bird cages
for the winged rage in our mouths.

Q: Is bravery meant to be this subdued?
A: I’m not brave enough to say.

Q: What is the circumference of bravery?
N/A

Bullet holes trapping the moon
in horse hides look like bulbs of light.
They are not anti-night but another angle of it.

Q: Then how can you tell the difference
between horses and corpses?
A: How is that relevant?

Q: What is an anti movement?
A: A circle.

Last night I dreamed an airplane above
spiraled to the ground like an injured hummingbird.
And for once I watched and didn’t say or do a thing,
Just got on the next round trip.

Q: How is that relevant?
A: I wanted to prove that I dream of being honest.

Danae Younge is an internationally published poet from NC and a 24-year-old MFA student. You can find Danae’s work in The Wax Paper, Salamander Magazine, Petrichor, and over forty other publications. Her debut chapbook, Melanin Sun (−) Blind Spots, received the Florence Kahn Memorial Award from the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Her second chapbook, These Pink Cocoons of Ice, was published by Broadstone Books in 2024. She’s been nominated for Pushcart and Best of Net. Read more here www.danaeyounge.com and find her poetry youtube channel here https://youtube.com/@danaeyounge?si=VWPFP8ReYxr79VT9