feet slap dark moss soft webbed
platypus plap plap plap
bump on my eardrum tap tap tap
cave-wall lit like a microphone
my amoeba legs flow in and out
lightly on a lily pad lightly
to the rhythm of the white
flower blooming in the teal black
night spilt into the bright
gold pond of a stick-on tear
why (it asks why forever)
what is voice? soaked city
(innocuous) green mounds
anonymous as chewed-up
gum stuck to the bottom
of a shiny patent leather
purse that once belonged
to grandmother holed up
in her underground hut
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀father, a boy
not yet twelve, sweeps dirt
from the trap door palms on
splintered wood scchhhhwwwep
scchhhhwwwep dusting bio-
luminescent heads of predatory
glowworms peeping
out from their little lighthouses
of doom too late!
he drops down through the teal
black night so the soldiers
wouldn’t see only the night
monkeys eyes red as mars
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀mothers biting babies
to shoo them from their breasts
when in lamplight they took mother
took her breasts took her curdled
line of blood and milk
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀we walk
through the throngs i a child
of the future son of a president
the cherry ink of smut-rags bleeding
in the streets of la paz
where they don’t vote
you out they kill you
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀he lets go my hand
lopped-off lizard tail octopus
regenerating bowler hat
& bloodline i never learned to speak
⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀neck-deep in crystals
from Salar de Uyuni i am daughter
of this salt granddaughter
of a president an untranslated
song my American mouth
a bright pink mirror
of the salt flats at dawn
⠀⠀
⠀⠀
⠀⠀
⠀⠀
* Inspired by Rebekah del Rio’s a cappella performance of Llorando in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, 2001.
Dedicated to my birth grandfather, briefly president of Bolivia.
Amy Raasch is a Los Angeles-based poet, musician, and performer. Recent publications include Tahoma Literary Review, The Los Angeles Times, Rose Books Reader, ANMLY, and Angel City Review. A finalist for the 2025 Jack McCarthy Book Prize, 2025 Florida Review Editor’s Award, and 2024 Trio Award, she has received support from Community of Writers and Prospect Street Writers House. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars. She writes about what haunts us. You can find her on Instagram @girlsgetcold.