Salve by Luna Mac-Williams

Photo by Lina Trochez

there’s a crackling of static

in the attic of my mind. there’s a

lactic acid building in my

muscles of emotion. there’s a

hissing in the fissures,

a weariness,

a wariness,

and baby, i am burnt up to a crumb.

i am a loose thread of a lady

looped around herself and tied,

a tide in search of the moon.

who knots her heart to shooting star tails,

begs for blessings in fortune cookie fortunes,

bears the cross of a haphazard religion

assembled from semblances of sweetness.

i am sitting on the kitchen floor,

saucepan in hand, cabinet open,

staring off in this house so empty

i feel its stomach growling in the walls.

but god is said to love me smooth and wrinkled,

and these stitched-together seams are ready.

i found a four-leaf clover

in a busted corner of the pavement,

that city crack a shitty shack, but home.

so send me a solace to whom i sing praises,

a happiness with sinews to sink teeth into.

rain down in rhythm and rinse me clean,

and if you don’t give me goodness quite yet,

at least give me more words.

fill me up with poems.

brush my hair with their gap-toothed comb,

sing me to sleep with their similes.

heat them on the comal till they

get just-right chamuscado.

wrap me in them, lay me down,

and let me dream in verse.

place them in my little hands

and close my fingers around them,

let them linger even when i open my fists

and there’s nothing but whispers on my palm.

may they stay. as long as i have them,

this balm, this psalm, gives goodness.

---

The Author

Luna Dragon Mac-Williams is a playwright, poet, actor, dancer, jeweler, editor, educator, and undergraduate student at Wesleyan University. She is a proud Chicago native. Her one-act, Good Strong Coffee, premiered at Chicago Dramatists through Pegasus Theater in winter 2018. She believes in sweet coffee, shooting stars, and helping youth to honor and share their personal narratives. Instagrams: @lunitadragon and @bylunawithlove. Issuu: @lunitadragon.

Luna Mac-Williams