All Day Long I Feel Created
1.
As the deer pantenth after
the Honda struck at 65
and pulled over with a steaming
clunka-clunka, radiator
bent and bloodied as a broken nose,
driver distraught and uninsured
but unfazed by the life-clinging doe
halfway in the ditch, so my soul
panteth after you.
2.
Every day I’m rescued,
each and every day I’m saved.
3.
My forklift chirps reversal,
schlepping stainless steel pipe,
popping over puckered pavement.
A ladybug lands on the wheel knob.
A ladybug lifts its elytra.
The wings beneath are mirrors.
Pipe finds dunnage with hydraulic
lurch. A ladybug lifts off,
lifts away.
4.
Kiss my face off! Kiss
me right into oblivion!
5.
Last night I line-danced to Lizzo’s “Juice”
with Jean Valentine’s daughter
and understood miaphysitism
for the first time, so forgive me for asking,
but when I unzip my skin from crown
to crotch and my so-far self heaps
sloppy at my feet, please,
Jesus God, let it be you at last in the
mirror I see.
Riley Richards received an MFA in Poetry from Fairleigh-Dickinson University, taught Creative Writing and Political Writing at Uzhhorod National University in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, and is currently a PhD student at Florida State University. Riley’s writing has been published or is forthcoming in Fugue, After Happy Hour Review, Barrelhouse, and elsewhere.
Amethyst Review 