In January, Deep
by Thalia Trinidad
When I sense that my thoughts are expanding, no,
filling my pink brain with a pale, bodily terror,
my limbs begin to sink like oiled machinery,
like the gas pumps deep in Texas wilderness
ordered to pull and suck and twist for eternity.
I embody this brainless being stuck in the muck of flesh
aching to break and settle in the shade.
When this comes on I follow the urge for quiet.
I spend an hour in the shadow of a naked tree.
Here is a column of matter that without memory,
nor ears, nor eyes, opens its green cells
to the beck and call of springbirds as pupils to light.
I need no conscience to bloom.
Thalia Trinidad is an emerging southern writer—currently based in Houston, Texas—who recently finished up her bachelor's in poetry and psychology at the University of Houston. She is deeply interested in exploring the south, queer perceptivity, ecology, anti-capitalism, and the working-class perspective in her poetics.