Because Your Makeup Has Become Corpse Paint | Erica Brunner

Erica Brunner is a poet from Seattle. Her poems are included in Hanging Loose Magazine, The Monarch Review, WomenArts Quarterly, the Portland Review, Bear Review, Pacifica Literary Review and elsewhere. Her first chapbook is entitled The Sun is Full of Bullets, also available from Dancing Girl Press. She earned her MFA in Poetry from the New School.  She currently lives and writes in Brooklyn.     Because Your Makeup Has Become Corpse PaintWe sit cross-leggedon grasswet from morning sprinklers.We’re devotedwithout worshippingwithout a planwith dirtin our palms.We’re almondswe’re lavenderwe’re dust steam orange juice chrysanthemum tea.We’re filtered now,cool air through a grate.We chasethe last drops of waterfrom the faucetto the white ceramic sink.We’re honeywe’re riverswe’re lakes.We chase the triumph of a moonwith half empty beersraspberry-stained palms.What always takes meto the riverthe river that pulled uswhere I scrambledover dirt and rocksto shit behind treeswhere you couldn’t