John Kuligowski

Being, Unhoused Near ABQ

Face upturned     eyes a rapturous ecosystem collapse 

above cheeks sunken into her Being, of the earth, 

if the former           [were]

    something of a clear concept, solid state. 

So, we wait in the blistered New Mexico sunlight, 

of high noon Albuquerque.

The car again     out of gas, & the idea

of selling ourselves     like an emerging spadefoot 

roused by low-frequency thunder.

Her eyes     evicted beneath a honey mesquite 

at least thirty-feet tall, skin taut from so many

spoonsful of ice

not adequate to slake one’s thirst. We

     gone seeking shade plenty of places over 

the past few days, &     told by the police to leave 

the fountain where, despite signs 

suggesting unfit water, 

we splashed away the salt on our skin, 

dropped our shirts into the spray—

Now Her lids unshutter, & I see irises that match

whatever we     say

about Being, unhoused. Beneath, our skin—

the raw, rough earth of the nearby mountains.

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Image by Maddy Baker Pexels

John Kuligowski is an emerging writer and Ph.D. student in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Georgia. His work has appeared in BlazeVOX, The Chaffin Journal, Foothill Poetry Journal, Maudlin House, Misery Tourism, The Shoutflower, Word Riot, and others. Additionally, he has served as Assistant Editor to poet Kwame Dawes for the two-volume The Dictionary of Literary Biography: 21st Century African American Poets, and as an editor in creative nonfiction for Prairie Schooner.

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