My Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas
I push your mud into the crevice
of my boot, Duluth.
I follow your veins
to Chester Creek,
geocache my secrets
under thimbleberries,
forget-me-not banks,
Ninth Street rain-water run
of rocks, Duluth, you’ve swallowed
our memories into your trees
at Fourteenth and Seventh
where I first learned to walk.
Where I first learned to listen
to your bluesed banjo and washboard notes
that stirred slumbered dust from Brewhouse floors
where I first learned to dance.
Where I first preserved every note
that lead to every coffee cup I drained
when I first woke to you, Duluth.
Where I swore
none could compare
to your Woodland shadows.
Where I apologized first,
when I told you the UP pulled,
swore I’d return before the next blue moon,
offered lavender satchels to the Witch Tree
to ensure my Kitchi Gummi travels
would guide me back to you, Duluth.
It’s been two years, three months since we’ve danced.
I clutch your map,
hold your hand, Duluth.
I inhale your steamed Superior,
cobble-stone street.
I wanna pin your wind in my hair,
let my head rise and fall
on your Rose-Garden belly,
my Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas.
You were my first laugh,
first love, Duluth.
When I lend my lips
to your Vermilion cheek,
you pour dandelion, honey and pine
into my hollow tongue.
I wanna wrap my mitten
’round your Hillside knee
and patch every notch
in your broken streets, Duluth.
I navigate my return
through your canal,
chart your bridges on my hands,
collect sea glass to protect you
from harbored ruin, Duluth.
Duluth, at Park Point we meet.
your sand pleads at my feet,
’cause you won’t let me leave this time.
And I want you to swallow my body,
bury the cartography of us.
Duluth, I read your Skyline
like my favorite book,
I repeat every word in my sleep.
Triptych
I.
Fuckin eh,
I want the woman back
who isn’t
scared of the fucking pizza delivery guy
on New
Year’s day. I’m sorry to say,
but I want
my coconut ring back, too.
The one
that I whittled
into
almost fitting
my right,
ring finger. I’m sorry to say,
but they
picked the wrong damn woman.
I’m the
woman who was born without warning.
On a
Friday night I shored like a tsunami in the middle
of my
brother’s first birthday. And I’m sorry to say
I’m a
fucking fish who knows her flip-turns
and
fin-kicks. So I guess they picked the right woman.
I’m the
woman with seven brothers who punched me
as
practice for lunch. I was born
to scream
for food, to wrestle fresh air—
and that’s
why I’d let them pick me again
and again.
Jesus,
I thought
of my sister first, giving birth.
Cause I’ve
got practice out of water,
in the
middle of the ocean, and I swear
that’s how
I breathed my nephew’s first breath.
II.
Fuck Fiji.
Fuck the man who broke into my hostel
and tried
to fuck me while I was asleep.
I didn’t
see his face, but I can testify
how I woke
with him
spilled
over me, how he molded me
into
mattress, and seemed to right his thighs
so they’d
yoke—that’s right
when I
swore I couldn’t tell his breath from mine.
Dark
enough I’d of believed he was just
that
heavy, South Pacific air that crawled
over me.
Dark enough
I’d
convinced myself he was just
a fucking
nightmare.
But I know
I woke in the morning,
underwear
ripped from my hips,
and every
time I looked
in the
mirror I saw him, a blotch the size of a plum,
a swollen
neck, I swear. And I can testify
how
everyone laughed at me.
How I bit
my tongue till it bled, and swallowed
my
breakfast bones whole
alone.
This is
how I know his skin tastes like cumin,
like
marrow,
like salt.
III.
For all I
knew I was barefoot and bare-breasted in the nightfall
of a
Minnesota winter. It must’ve been the way the cold
bloomed my
toes from the hostel floor. Or it must’ve
been how I
yanked my dress over my knees, real quick
when it
tricked me. Turns out it was just some end of June,
black-magic
hex. And man I’d be damned
if Mana
Island’s heat wasn’t hostile, too.
Cause fuck
the man with the messenger bag
who
cornered me in the hostel bathroom that day.
Fuck him
and the horse he rode in on. I honestly
wanted to
believe him when he told me
he was
there to check the lights. But this is my testimony:
that when
he locked the hostel door, I lost feeling
in my
hands and throat. Man, I’m not sure when I took
my next
breath, but my chest must’ve filled
somewhere
between when he sat on the bed,
with his
foot cocked and ticking
like the
big hand of a broken clock,
and
between I’m um, from the United States.
Look, if I
could draw a map of his eyes,
I’d draw
silence. First, I’d outline my body in rud. Bloodshot
up my
calves, until I reached my shoulders.
It’d be
don’t blink here
or here
when I picked up my feet, reached
for the
door handle and pulled. That’s when I swung
and let my
chest crack. Even when he choked me.
I swear I
fucking fought
til I felt
the burn of dirt on my slatted back. But God,
fucking
damnit
I wish I
had more words left
other than
help me
God, someone, help me.
If Ashley
Goedker was honest with every stranger she met, she’d tell them that she hailed
from her hometown Brainerd, Minnesota. She’d tell people that she’s from the
place people call “Cabin Country,” “The Brainerd Lakes Area,” or “That Place in
the movie Fargo.” Instead, sometimes Ashley likes to pretend she’s from Duluth,
Minnesota, where she really does feel at home. She spent her early twenties
learning how to get lost, read maps, and then find herself climbing (or
clawing) up icy streets in the middle of the night. Aside from living in
Duluth, where Ashley received her Bachelor’s in English from the University of
Minnesota, she has made a point to live and travel in many different places. She received her Master’s
in English Literature and Pedagogy from Northern Michigan University in Marquette. And now lives in Moscow, Idaho, where she works on an MFA at the University of Idaho. Ashley believes that belly-laughing
is the best exercise she gets.
