Flood Irrigation
Beneath the branches, I see myself
reflected in a puddle at my feet.
I see you. I see us. I see our years
cast oblong into the great shimmering
wetness. The inverted world of more
perfect selves. No scars. The bark
on the trees completely smooth. I cup
a palmful of the water. I splash
my hot face, remembering the sky,
the soil, the dark wood of almond trees.
I can hear the men in the rows beside me
scraping at the fallen hulls
with long plastic rakes. I think
of your nails against my skin,
the red channels your fingers leave behind,
slowly filling with my eager blood.
Pain in the Hollow Place
Here, say this thing. Say this with
a snakebite. With your throat swollen.
A beige serpent coiled like a question
mark, about to pierce your skin.
How tough are you? How tough
is your hide? Loneliness. The dark
vapors envelope you. You evolved
love. You shook your rattle at the night.
The air answered back. A warning
of sorts. Some shout of existence.
Nobody treads lightly. No one checks
for a poem between the shrubs.
Your back is laced with gems.
Diamonds and starlight engraved
into your rippling flesh. Isn’t it
maddening? To be driven by
your desires, your curiosities,
the looming hunger of your
wet fangs. Baby, I want to bite.
Baby, I want a bite. I want
this sensation to go away.
This tingling, this drifting off.
I want only you, only you, you.
Jordan Escobar is a writer from Central California. He is the author of the chapbook Men With the Throats of Birds (CutBank Books). He is a 2023 winner of the St. Botolph Emerging Artist Award and a 2022 Djanikian Scholar in Poetry. He has been published in many journals including Prairie Schooner, Zone 3, The Cortland Review, and elsewhere. He currently teaches at Emerson College and Babson College.